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Elements of Religion 



BY 



HENRY EYSTER JACOBS, D. D., LL. D. 

Norton Professor of Systematic Theology in the Lutheran Theological 
Seminary hi Philadelphia; Author of "The Lutheran Move- 
ment in England," ''History of the Lutheran Church 
iti the United States'" ; Translator and Editor 
of " The Book of Concord ^ Etc., Etc. 




PHILADELPHIA : If ~) 

G. W. FREDERICK ' 

1894 




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Copyrighted by 

G. W. FREDERICK 

Philadelphia 

1894 



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PREFACE. 



Some time ago, two clergymen, writing with- 
out consultation, from different parts of the 
country, almost simultaneously requested us to 
prepare a volume of essays on Dodlrinal Theology, 
adapted to the wants of inquirers, both w T ithin and 
without the communion to w T hich we belong. It 
was represented that, in these times of unrest and 
subtle scepticism, there was a call for a treatment 
of theological questions in a plain, direct and 
straightforward way, avoiding the technicalities of 
professed scientific expositions, and better adapted 
to our age and country, than the translations of 
excellent w T orks that have proved of great service 
to many among us. 

The author, who has for some years been 
endeavoring to teach Theology, recognized in the 
suggestion an opportunity to present, in a familiar 
and connected form, his own personal testimony on 
topics, the significance and life of which, he has often 
apprehended, are obscured by the close methods cf 
analysis and demands of rigid, logical precision 
necessarily required in their more scientific treat- 
ment. His highest delight in the class room has 



4 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION, 

been whenever he could push aside text-book and 
lecture, and could speak from his own convictions 
on these living topics. Nor has he ever found his 
students un-responsive when such liberty to depart 
from the prescribed routine was taken. In this 
book he has endeavored to write with similar 
freedom. The book was written amidst the duties 
of session time, under the stimulus of daity contact 
with students in the class-room, and with their 
many questions and perplexities in view. The 
fruits of the author's reading throughout his entire 
life have been ever in mind ; but, as a rule, he has 
ventured to write without accumulating authorities. 
The aim is to present, in a plain form, a restate- 
ment of the main argument of revealed religion. 
He has hoped in this way to aid students in unify- 
ing the knowledge, which, in such an indispensable 
w 7 ork as Schmid's " Doctrinal Theology, of the 
Evangelical Lutheran Church," is presented in a 
very fragmentary way, that often confuses one 
who attempts to study it consecutively. In the 
arrangement of his material, he has neither en- 
deavored to conform to previous writers, nor to 
depart from them. He does not offer his construc- 
tion of the system as the best attainable, or as a 
great improvement on those that have already been 
giv^en ; but he hopes that some of the doctrines in 
the true, although not very usually assigned 
relations in which they are placed, may gain fresh 
interest. 



ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 5 

The author is a Lutheran, who, without being 
blind to the great merits and distinguished services of 
theologians of other Churches, accepts, with ever 
increasing devotion, the matchless expositions of 
Scriptural truth contained in the Lutheran Confes- 
sions. He recognizes, however, the fadl that the 
Church of every age and every land has a peculiar 
calling to fulfill and a peculiar service, in the 
development of the kingdom of God, to perform. 
To confess the same faith in many lands and many 
tongues requires more than the translation of the 
same treatise from one language into the others. 
As with our sermons, so it must also be with our 
theology ; we cannot depend upon translations, 
except as merely temporary expedients. The 
matter remains permanent ; but the form changes 
not only w r ith the language, but with the age, the 
currents of thought and the diverse classes of errors 
and attacks that succeed one another with great 
rapidity. We must speak the language of the time 
and place where Providence has placed us. 

The reference to authorities generally ex- 
cluded in the text, for the purpose of avoiding a 
break in the argument, has been at least partially 
supplied by an appendix. We hope that the illus- 
trative matter, there found, may be serviceable to 
those who desire a fuller and more thorough treat- 
ment. Much has been included that has been 
profitable and interesting to the author, and which 
he believes will be valuable to his readers. Not 



6 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

the least important are testimonials to the force of 
the Lutheran position by theologians of other 
communions. Several questions of interest have 
also been presented there more fully than was 
possible in the text, where it has been our purpose 
to exhibit results rather than processes. 

Henry E. Jacobs. 
Mt. Airy, Philadelphia. 
Aug. 15th, 1894. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Part L 
THE PRE-REQUISITES OF REDEMPTION. 

Chapter I. Theology and Religion - n 

II. The Holy Scriptures - - 23 

III. God -------- 33 

IV. God as Creator — Angels - 47 
V. God as Creator — Man - - 52 

VI. Sin --------- 56 

VII. The Wages of Sin - - - 63 

Part II. 
THE PREPARATION OF REDEMPTION. 
Chapter VIII. The Ground and Goal of 

Redemption - - - 69 
IX. God's Eternal Purpose - 73 
X. Providence and Redemption 80 
XI . The one Person and the two 

Natures ----- 91 

XII. The State of Humiliation 97 
XIII. The State of Exaltation 107 



8 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

XIV. The Offices of Christ - - 116 
XV. The Kingdom of God - - 129 

Part III. 
THE APPLICATION OF REDEMPTION. 
Chapter XVI. The Dispensation of The 

Holy Spirit - - - 137 
XVII. The Word ------ 143 

XVIII. Law and Gospel - - - - 156 

XIX. Word and Sacraments - - 161 
XX. Thb Word and Prayer - 175 

Part IV. 

THE EFFECTS OF REDEMPTION. 

Chapter XXI. Regeneration 179 

XXII. Faith 185 

XXIII. Faith of Infants - - - 193 

XXIV. Justification - - - - - 198 
XXV. Sanctification - - - - 208 

XXVI. Good Works - - - - - 213 

XXVII. Glorification - - - - - 219 

Part V. 
THE ADMINISTRATION OF REDEMPTION. 
Chapter XXVIII. The Church - - - - 229 
XXIX. The Ministry - - - - 240 

APPENDIX 247 



PART I. 

THE PRE-REQUISITES OF 
REDEMPTION. 



CHAPTER I. 



THEOLOGY AND RELIGION. 



Theology is the science which treats of the 
revelation of God to man. It presupposes that 
there is a God, that He has made a revelation, and 
that, however inexplicable be the mysteries con- 
nected with this revelation, all that is comprised 
therein maybe known. We know God, so far as 
He has given us capacities to know Him, and has 
enabled us to exercise these capacities upon the 
truths that He communicates to us. 

When Theology is defined, as the science of 
religion, no contradiction with the above definition 
is involved, but reference is had to the fact that all 
revelation has a practical end. God's revelation 
of Himself to man is for the purpose of implanting 
and developing within man a new life. By the 
study of this new life, which is the result of the pres- 
ence of God's Spirit within man, and which is con- 
stantly unfolding itself in the lives of individuals 
and the life of the Church, we trace more and more 
the details of God's revelation. Theology, thus 
considered, is not occupied with what God is 
apart from His relations to man, but with what 



12 



ELEMENTS OF RELIGION, 



He is in and through and for these relations. 

What, then, is religion? It is the communion 
of man with God. It affirms not only the possi- 
bility, but also the reality of a life of man in God, 
and a life of God in man. God and man are forever 
distinct. There are two personalities, one infinite 
and the other finite, bound together by the closest 
union, so that the finite is made partaker of the re- 
sources of the infinite. It is the office of the science 
of religion to teach us who these persons are, whence 
this communion comes, what it is and whither it 
tends. It gathers together and presents in order all 
the teachings of revelation concerning what man is 
towards God, and what God is towards man. But 
since what God is to man, and what man is to God 
in this communion is realized only in the Christian 
life, theology, as the science of religion, may be 
defined, as the science of the Christian life. 

Religion comes to man through the revelation 
to him of God's love. Man enters into communion 
with God by learning what God's love towards him 
is. But he learns this, only as God declares and 
unfolds it. He knows nothing, and can know 
nothing of God, except what God Himself dis- 
closes. God reveals Himself in Nature ; and this 
revelation in Nature is described in Psalm 19:1; 
Acts 17 : 24-26 ; Romans 1:18. But this is insuf- 
ficient to bring about a life-communion between 
man and God. It is, on the one hand, a revelation 
of wrath, Romans 1 : 18. It is, on the other, only a 



THEOLOGY AND RELIGION. 13 

suggestion of a clearer and fuller revelation that is 
to follow, Acts 17:23. It is a voice of God, asserting 
His supreme claims to man's love and worship, 
Romans 2:15; but bringing no answer to the ques- 
tion as to how such love and worship are to be 
rendered. It keeps man from being completely 
absorbed in the life of Nature, by ever reminding 
him of what is beyond and above Nature. The 
various false religions derive whatever elements 
of strength they have solely from this natural reve- 
lation. It asserts that there is a God, but fails to 
declare who or what God is. Some of His attributes 
are made manifest ; but all foundation for the recon- 
ciliation and the intimate union between man and 
God is lacking. Either some of the features of the 
primitive revelation of God, preserved by tradition 
from a purer period, are perverted, distorted and 
unduly emphasized by the loss of other doctrines, 
or the human mind, by the contemplation of Nature, 
and, by reflection upon itself, rising from the 
feeblest apprehensions of a higher power, 1 like 
one — to use a figure of Tertullian 2 — awakening 
from the stupor of intoxication, gropes painfully 
amidst the thick darkness towards the glow of 
coming day. 

If man is ever to have commumion with God, 
this feeble light of Nature, that comes only like the 
faint streaks of early dawn, must be lost in the clear 
and full exhibition of what God is to us in Christ. 

Numbers in the text refer to notes in the Appendix. 



14 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION, 

We know God only as the Son of God has de- 
clared him, John i : 18. As natural revelation, or the 
revelation of Creation, teaches us that there is a 
God, supernatural revelation, or the revelation of 
Redemption, teaches who and what God is. The 
religion which comes from natural revelation goes 
no farther than to seek after God ; the only true reli- 
gion is that in which the revelation of God is so 
certain and distincft, that man can live in the con- 
sciousness of God's presence and favor, of God's 
dire(5lion and support and omnipotent efficiency. 

This supernatural revelation of God has its 
degrees, as it progressively unfolds itself through all 
the stages of the world's history. When it is said 
that God is known only in Christ, by this we do 
not mean that the knowledge of what God is in 
Christ was entirely withheld until the incarnation 
of the Son of God. As the eternal, personal Word, 
he was in all ages the great Revealer. The revela- 
tion of Redemption began immediately after man's 
fall ; at first indistinctly and faintly, but growing 
in brightness with every succeeding era, until at 
last when Christ came, the mystery hidden from the 
ages became manifest — Col. i : 26 ; Eph. 3 : 9. 
Even the lower degrees of this revelation called 
forth and sustained and developed a religious life in 
man, as plants may grow and bloom in a cell into 
which only a few rays of light fall. Enough truth 
was given to assure man that God is both just and 
merciful, and, by the assurance of God's love to the 



THEOLOGY AND RELIGION. 15 

sinful, to bring man to God, and to enable him to 
look forward into the future for some signal display 
of Divine mercy, he could not tell what or how, 
whereby his complete deliverance from sin and 
highest enjoyment of God would be obtained. 
Thus the communion of God with man was restored 
in the first years of the human race. Men walked 
with God. They knew God as an ever living, ever 
loving, ever present personality, the one great 
reality to them beneath all other realities, nearer 
and more accessible than anything that they could 
see or hear. They knew that wherever they went 
God went, and wherever they were God was, and 
however alone they might seem in the silence of the 
night, or the seclusion of the desert, God always 
talked with them and they with God. From this 
communion with God, they ever drew new strength 
for the performance of life's duties and the endurance 
of life's trials. If they had put into writing all 
that they knew of God and their relations to Him, 
and their experience of His loving favor, this would 
have been a theology of the patriarchal age. 

But, with all this, they carried with them the 
sense of the incompleteness of this communion. 
They ever longed to be nearer to God, to know more 
of the mysteries of His love and wisdom, to be more 
wholly devoted to His w 7 ill. Their communion with 
Him w r as mingled with overwhelming disclosures of 
their sinfulness and un worthiness. There was some- 
thing distant and external about their relation. 



1 6 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

There were seeming contradictions in their experi- 
ence that they could not reconcile. Even when 
they knew Him to be nearest, He seemed to them to 
be most remote. Even when they were sure of His 
constant presence, He seemed to appear and to speak 
only at intervals, and only a small portion of His 
will concerning them, withholding freedom of 
utterance, like one whose confidence has been only 
partially gained. Jacob's wrestling with the angel, 
Gen. 32 : 24-30, tells the whole story. The " divers 
portions " and " divers manners " of the Old Testa- 
ment pointed towards a more direct and consoling 
expression of God's will, to be found in the unity 
and permanency of a higher revelation and still closer 
communion with man, Heb. 1:1, 2. 

In the Old Testament there was progress, both 
in revelation and in man's apprehension of the con- 
tents of this revelation. To Abraham God revealed 
Himself more fully than to Adam, to Moses more 
fully than to Abraham, to David more fully than to 
Moses, to Isaiah more fully than to David. The 
faces of all are turned towards a future, ever bright- 
ening as the centuries advance. But there was pro- 
gress also in man's apprehension of the contents of 
revelation. It is not on the first reception of a word 
of God, that its meaning is most clearly understood. 
The word must enter the life and develop there its 
spiritual capacities. The appropriation and assimi- 
lation of the word is gradual, day after day, and 
year after year of the religious life, affording ever 



THEOLOGY AND RELIGION. 17 

new occasions for its application, and new relations 
in which its precious powers are exercised. While 
the individual thus grows in his personal apprehen- 
sion of the contents of the revelation which he has 
long possessed, the fruits of his experience are 
transmitted to those who succeed him. The relig- 
ious experience of one generation becomes the 
heritage of the possessors of the same religious life 
in the next generation. This is the meaning of the 
words : " I am the God of Abraham and of Isaac 
and of Jacob," Matt. 22 : 32. The Old Testament 
saints were not, therefore, confined to the knowledge 
of the mere words in which God had declared to 
them His will, but each one, looking back upon his 
own life, and upon that of those who preceded him, 
could read the Word as interpreted, by numberless 
incidents of human experience in divine things. 
Not that experience is in any way the test of truth, 
but that the Word as the constant test of experience, 
manifests, through this process, resources which at 
first w T ere unthought of. 

As the knowledge of God, communicated 
through revelation and constantly more fully appre- 
hended in human experience, was unfolded, it found 
its record in the successive books of the Old Testa- 
ment, written under inspiration of the Holy Spirit. 

The Old Testament revelation was, however, 
only a feeble light, when compared w 7 ith that of the 
New Testament. The fulness of God's revelation 
entered, when God took humanity into personal 



s8 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION, 

union with Himself. When ' ' the Word was made 
flesh and dwelt among us," John i : 14; they who 
saw Him saw the Father, John 14 : 9. This made 
the greatest under the Old Testament, less than the 
least under the New, Matt. 11:11. In Christ, 
man's longing for complete union and reconciliation 
with God, and with it, the satisfying of the desire 
for knowing God, was at last to be accomplished. 
But here again, this knowledge was attained only 
gradually. The Lord of Glory, incarnate in weak 
humanity, leads His people by slow stages to the 
understanding of what He is and whence and for 
what He comes. The story of that wonderful earthly 
life is a succession of revelations and surprises. 
Every descent into a valley of humilation, is only a 
preparation for an ascent to an elevation far beyond 
what had been previously reached. The dark 
shadows of the valley of Gethsemane lead to 
Olivet and the higher glories beyond. He reveals 
Himself both in holy deeds and in words of saving 
power, forever impressed upon the minds of those 
who are with Him, even though they understand but 
little of their deep significance. The disciples were 
like collectors of a vast literature written in hiero- 
glyphics that must be deciphered in coming years, on 
a distant shore and by long practice. So the words 
were gathered to be recorded and applied only when 
the promise would be fulfilled : ' * The Holy Ghost 
shall bring all things to your remembrance, what- 
soever I have said unto you, ' ' John 14 : 26. To use 



THEOLOGY AND RELIGION, 19 

another figure, the negative was photographed when 
the Lord was present to their sight ; but the develop- 
ment of that impression continues through the 
power of the Holy Spirit throughout succeeding 
ages. 

None were more conscious of this process, and 
how r far they were from attaining perfection in 
apprehending the contents of revealed truth, than 
those who made the greatest progress in this sphere. 
Paul confesses that the love of Christ passeth 
knowledge, Eph. 4:19. All truth was given in 
Christ. Nothing remained to be said concerning the 
will of God towards man. In Him revelation was 
complete. The one complete revelation in Christ is 
contrasted with the many partial revelations of a 
former period, Heb. 1:1,2. But the contents of 
this one revelation are more and more unfolded and 
applied under the leading of the Spirit, until the 
highest stage of revelation is reached in the world 
to come, where we will no longer knew in part, but 
as we are known, 1 Cor. 13 : 12. 

This process may be traced in the New Testa- 
ment Canon. The last of the Gospels excels, in 
depth and inwardness, those that precede it, to such 
a degree that the distinction between the Synoptics 
and the Gospel of John is one of the most prominent 
features of New Testament study. The Epistles 
are explanations, defences and applications of the 
doctrine of Christ, made, as the Holy Spirit brought 
His teachings to mind, and preserved the writers 



20 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

from error in representing and recording them. 

But the process did not cease with the com- 
pletion of the New Testament Canon and the days 
of inspiration. The Holy Spirit came to God's 
people on the Day of Pentecost, to abide w 7 ith them 
forever, John 14 : 16. He is no less present in the 
Church of the Nineteenth, than He was in the Church 
of the First Century. Under His leading and inner 
impulse, believing men have been ever brought to a 
clearer and fuller apprehension of the doctrines 
given once for all in Holy Scripture. All the pro- 
ducts of this working of the Holy Spirit in the 
experience of the Church are to be carefully treas- 
ured and to be thankfully used. The Holy 
Scriptures afford the test whereby to discriminate 
a true from a false development. All that is not 
contrary to Holy Scripture in the life of the Church, 
belongs to the Providential development of its 
capacities, as the witness of the truth and the 
bearer of salvation. Well-known as may be a 
passage or a series of passages of Scripture and 
abundant in consolation, a joyful discovery of riches 
hitherto unthought of hidden therein, often follows, 
when error seeks to pervert it ; and the confusion 
which is threatened, forces the individual Christian, 
or a Church communion to its most thorough study. 
For a time, the violence of controversy may be 
heard, and the fact be deeply deplored that Christian 
men instead of applying the word of Scripture to 
the wants of practical life, should allow their 



THEOLOGY AND RELIGION. 21 

energies to be dissipated by polemical zeal. But 
tne rise of every- error and the rage of every con- 
troversy point to an ultimate victory. Men are 
forced anew to the Word of God ; arguments on 
the one side and on the other, are carefully balanced, 
the ardor of contestants only contributing more 
•fully to the wealth of material that is gathered, and 
the wider outlook which the controverted passage or 
doctrine opens. The result is the formulation of a 
definition or statement, condensing declarations 
found in numerous Scriptural passages, and ex- 
pressed in language so thoroughly guarded as to 
exclude the errors which threatened to enter under 
the garb of more general terms that had hitherto 
been used. Such a definition settling a controversy, 
and officially approved as a test of sound teaching, 
is called a dogma. 

The dogmas, or officially approved definitions, 
of the Church are set forth in the Church's Confes- 
sions of Faith. They have their authority not from 
the Church, but from their agreement with Holy 
Scripture. A pure dogma, therefore, combines two 
elements : Its material is from the Holy Scriptures ; 
its form has been determined by the Church's ex- 
perience. It has, therefore, both a Scriptural and 
an historical side. 

The science which exhibits the dogmas of the 
Church in their connection, is the science of Dog- 
matics. The distinction between Biblical Theology 
and Dogmatics can be clearly drawn. Biblical 



22 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

Theology ignores all other sources but the Bible. 
Dogmatics uses as its sources the Bible and the 
results of the Church's experience as expressed in 
definitions, whose truth can be proved from the 
Bible. Dogmatics proceeds even further. It may 
use the results attained by the experience of the 
Church and the individual believer in the applica- 
tion and defence of the Church's dogma. 

Regarding, then, theology as the science of 
religion, and religion as the communion of man with 
God, a correct dogmatical method investigates the 
principles from which this communion comes, and 
by which it is supported and developed. But its 
sphere cannot be limited to the consideration of 
those truths which belong to the individual's per- 
sonal experience of God's saving grace. It includes 
all that is contained in Holy Scripture, whether this 
can be traced in human experience or not. Its 
sphere comprehends that of Biblical Theology, as 
well as that of the Church's dogmas. Thus, while 
our own experience, and the experience of the 
Church for ages give us no data for a dogma con- 
cerning angels, yet as the Holy Scriptures teach 
their existence and offices, the theologian must 
believingly appropriate, state and defend all that 
Scripture says concerning them. But on the doc- 
trines of sin, the need of redemption, and the apply- 
ing grace of the Holy Spirit, Christian experience 
most abundantly illustrates the statements of Holy 
Scripture, and hence enters as a most important 
factor for an adequate treatment. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 



The Holy Scriptures are the infallible and 
inerrant record of God's revelation of His saving 
grace to men. Since the revelation was made long 
before it was committed to writing, the record is 
not the sole source of the truths which it contains. 
The first source of the New Testament message 
was the oral communication of this revelation 
by Christ and his Apostles. As it is not the 
record, but the truth borne by the record, which 
is the organ of the regenerating and converting 
influences of the Holy Spirit, this same truth orally 
communicated in Apostolic days and since then, is 
just as efficient as when it is read from the pages of 
Scripture. But while the statement that the Holy 
Scriptures are the sole source of revealed truth 
requires this qualification, they are to be revered as 
the chosen means for preserving the purity of the 
Apostolic teaching, since tradition, without a writ- 
ten record whereby to test it, inevitably becomes 
corrupt. They are the absolute standard of a pure 
revelation, " according to which all doctrines and 



24 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

all teachers are to be judged." The fruits of 
Christian experience are not to be ignored by the 
student of theological science ; but they are not 
co-ordinated with Holy Scripture, neither do they 
supplement Scripture. They are valuable, only as, 
when we recur to Holy Scripture, we find that they 
are the development of the truths therein set forth. 
The definitions of the Church are not to be lightly 
esteemed, nor is the testimony of Christian scholars 
of all ages to be passed by ; but heartily as w T e 
admire, and profoundly as we study them, unless 
they can show that their divergence from the Scrip- 
tural record, is only in applying its truths to other 
spheres and other relations, they are to be absolutely 
discarded. 

As long as the Apostles lived, endowed as wit- 
nesses of the teaching of the Lord, with a special 
divine gift which raised them above the possibility 
of error, this was of itself a sufficient standard. 
But when with their death, the Church was destitute 
of infallible teachers, the need of a record as the 
test of the pure Apostolic teaching was manifest. 
Even the most ordinary matters of life, concerning 
which the witnesses have no motive for deception, 
are soon misrepresented, as the account passes 
by oral communication from person to person. 
The interest of the various persons who hear 
the report differs with respect to the details, 
according to the temperament, occupation, experi- 
ence and education of each one. Every detail 



THE HOL Y SCRIPTURES. 25 

may be preserved, but the narrative will convey an 
entirely different impression, according to the varied 
emphasis of details, where a less important circum- 
stance is assigned the chief place, and the most 
important sinks into relative obscurity. Thus the 
proportion of events is distorted. But the difficulty 
of accurate transmission increases, as the facts pass 
from the sphere of the natural to that of the super- 
natural. What we understand we can transmit 
more faithfully than that which baffles our efforts to 
comprehend. The mysteries of faith would soon be 
distorted, were they not fixed in a written record. 
Still greater, however, is the difficulty where what 
is handed down reproves and condemns those by 
whom it is to be reported ; where the dignity of 
humanity, concerning which men boast so loudly, 
is shown to be a fraud ; where human wisdom is 
declared to be folly, and human glory dishonor ; 
where, on every page, the very best man must read 
a reproof of sin and, but for the interposition of 
redemption, the certain wrath of Gcd. We all 
know how natural it is to try to persuade ourselves 
that a charge against us is less serious than the 
reality. It is an easy matter to pass over specifica- 
tions of guilt, and to suppress or misstate doctrines 
that to a perverted reason seem unimportant or 
absurd. The same principle that requires us to 
learn the standpoint of the historian, in order that 
we ma} T estimate the correctness and proportioning 
of his facts, clearly declares that the statements of 



26 ELEMEK TS OF RELIGION. 

tradition are always influenced by the medium 
through which they come to us. In all important 
business transactions, mere oral statements are 
nothing. Everything is in uncertainty, until w 7 hat 
is in mind is " put into black and white " in a writ- 
ten document. An entertainment which is said to 
have originated with the late Prof. Whewell, of 
Cambridge, gives an excellent illustration. Write 
a brief narrative, and read it to the first of a circle 
of friends. Let him repeat it to his neighbor, and 
so on, until the last of the circle commits it to 
writing ; and then let the tw 7 o records be compared. 
But if, instead of continuous repetition, a year, or 
even a day should intervene between each repetition, 
and there should be some items included in the 
story discreditable to those who repeat it, it would 
soon assume a form that could scarcely be recog- 
nized. Scripture, therefore, is not to be brought to 
tradition* as the standard according to which it is to 
be tested, but tradition is constantly to be tested by 
Scripture. The final appeal is to the written 
record. 

A record of revelation w r as necessary, also, in 
view of the large number of persons who were to be 
reached, and the closer and more frequent contact 
with revealed truth which was thus to be established. 
The oral tradition, even if preserved in its purity, 
could not always be recalled ; most of it would be 
absent when most wanted. A sermon unwritten, 
however excellent, may soon be almost entirely for- 



THE HOL Y SCRIPTURES. 27 

gotten even by the preacher, while the manuscript 
of former years recalls what otherwise is lost. If 
oral tradition were the test, then were any truth 
assailed by errorists, believers would be powerless, 
when they could not immediate^ recall the words 
of God upon which it rests ; but with revelation 
committed to writing, the volume is always by them 
in which they can search and read for themselves 
what God has declared. 

The authority of Holy Scripture is determined 
by inspiration. Revelation and inspiration are some- 
times confounded . The former is the making known 
of that w T hich hitherto had been unknown ; the latter 
is the divine influence whereby men are enabled to 
produce an infallible declaration of what has been 
revealed. Inspiration with respect to the Holy 
Scriptures, is that divine act whereby chosen men 
were enabled to write an infallible record of revela- 
tion. So penetrating and thorough was this Divine 
influence, that the record is properly said to be the 
Word of God. The individuality of the writer is 
not destroyed = His peculiarities of style and 
thought are preserved, and this is done by no 
accomodation of the Holy Spirit to his phrases and 
idioms. The Gospel of St. Matthew is truly, and 
not simply seemingly, what it claims to be, the 
Gospel according to St. Matthew, i. <?., the Gospel 
from the standpoint of the human personality of 
St. Matthew, with that personality impelled by the 
Spirit of Gcd and guarded from all theological 



28 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

error. The grammar and rhetoric, like the chiro- 
graphy and orthography of the original text, are 
Matthew's. The entire human side of the Gospel 
comes from the writer. But, at the same time, 
every word is just as truly a word of the Holy Spirit. 
The Holy Spirit impelled the author to write, sug- 
gested the thoughts, and so controlled their expres- 
sion, that it became an infallible record of revelation 
in all those matters for which God has given us a 
revelation. We claim for the Holy Scriptures 
absolute inerrancy with respect to all theological 
truth ; we repell any suggestion or suspicion of 
deception, or error in the strict sense of the term, 
even on those subjects which only form the frame- 
work, but not the contents of the record of revela- 
tion. It is true that the sun rises and sets, even 
though astronomy may in its way establish the con- 
trary ; for this deceives no reader, and conveys an 
entirely correct impression. No witness would be 
charged with perjury, if he swore that, at sunrise, 
he was witness of an important deed. Only a 
pedant would suggest that he spoke inaccurately. 
A Newton or a Kepler would always speak in the 
same way, except when he would enter upon the 
scientific explanation of the phenomenon of the 
rising and the setting sun. Writers w T ere not in- 
spired so as to speak with scientific precision when 
the}^ employed their human knowledge of geograph- 
ical or chronological details, in unfolding to unlet- 
tered men the revealed truth with which the entire 



THE HOL Y SCRIPTURES. 29 

range of human facts was connected. As in the 
person of Christ, the divine and the human were 
united, and, by this union, the limitation of the 
human element was not at once removed. The 
human element in Scripture reminds us of the 
human nature of Christ during the State of Humila- 
tion. As Christ, in His humanity, refrained from 
the full use of the attributes communicated through 
its union with the divine nature, and thus shared 
in all the sinless weaknesses of humanity ; so the 
Holy Spirit, in making the sacred writers infallible 
recorders of the hitherto unknown will of God 
towards men, in no way inspired them to be teachers 
of astronomy, or geology, or physics. These 
spheres do not belong to revelation. It is enough 
for us to know that, on these subjects, they had in 
the fullest extent the ordinary assistance granted 
believers even now, when, pra}'ing for the Spirit's 
guidance, they use earthly things in the service of 
the truth as it is in Jesus. No number of contra- 
dictions that could be gathered within this sphere, 
w T ould in the least degree shake our confidence s in 
the absolute authority of Holy Scripture as the in- 
fallible test of theological truth, an inerrant guide 
in all matters of faith and practice. If it be fallible, 
then the very end for which a record of revelation 
has been provided, is defeated. 

Holy Scripture carries with it its own evidence 
of its divine source and authority. While the his- 
torical evidence of its claims is to be gratefully 



3 o ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

cherished, and affords the proof of highest probabil- 
ity, Holy Scripture speaks with absolute certainty 
to those to whom it portrays the deepest secrets of 
their hearts, and whose felt wants it completely 
supplies. The inner testimony of the Spirit is the 
strongest and most convincing of all arguments. 
The fact that this is always at hand and universally 
applicable, raises it above all arguments that depend 
upon the researches of the learned. Here is an 
argument that the humblest and most unlettered 
apprehend with no less force than the profoundest 
scholars. This argument demands that whatever 
Holy Scripture claims for itself must be conceded ; 
for if its testimony concerning itself be invalidated, 
how can it be trusted when it speaks of other 
things ? 

Holy Scripture is not only an infallible, but it 
is also a complete record of God's revelation. As 
revelation has had its degrees, the record of revela- 
tion has corresponded to them. God from the 
beginning disclosed to men all that was needful, at 
each particular stage of the world's history, for 
their salvation. Whatever fuller knowledge is 
unfolded, as we pass from one period to another, 
came by a fuller revelation, which was embodied in 
a fuller record. We need not seek beyond Scripture 
for any supplementary knowledge. Whatever is 
valuable in the experience of the Church, is only a 
development, but not a supplement of the truth 
contained in Scripture. 



THE HOL Y SCRIPTURES. 31 

Holy Scripture is also a sufficiently clear revela- 
tion. On every page we read mysteries whose 
depths the knowledge of an archangel cannot 
fathom . We constantly encounter difficulties which 
defy our reason, but must be cheerfully acquiesced 
in by our faith. Were its mysteries always intelli- 
gible, it would carry within it the proof of its own 
untrustworthiness. The revelation of -an infinite 
God cannot be comprehended by finite man. Faith 
must rest upon that which we cannot see or 
understand. Hence the rule : " The things of 
Scripture are obscure ; the words of Scripture are 
clear. ' '3 The statement of the mysteries of religion 
is most clear, completely as the mysteries themselves 
transcend our thought. The fact revealed we can 
apprehend, unable as we are to comprehend the 
mode in which the fact exists, or the relations which 
it bears. Scripture is its own interpreter. Scripture 
as the revelation of a God of truth, must be self- 
consistent. Every passage of Scripture must be 
read in the light of the context, and of other pas- 
sages of Scripture bearing on the same subject. 
Scripture has but one sense,* and is to be received 
literally, except where it demands for itself a figura- 
tive interpretation. When controversies arise, the 
original languages alone afford the accurate decision 
of the meaning ; since it is only the Scriptures, as 
written in the original languages, that are inspired. 
Even the best translation is only a human explana- 
tion or interpretation of the inspired words, however 



32 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

well the inspired tho'ught may be conveyed in other 
language. But above all, the Scriptures require the 
enlightening influences of the Holy Spirit. While 
' ' the natural man receiveth not the things of the 
Spirit of God ; for they are foolishness unto him : 
neither can he know them, because they are spirit- 
ually discerned," " he that is spiritual judgeth all 
things " (i Cor. 2 : 14, 15). If the clear light that 
shines from the Scriptures fails to enlighten suffi- 
ciently men's minds, it is because an obstruction is 
placed before the influences of the Spirit, as they 
seek to enter man and communicate the saving 
knowledge of the Gospel. This is the reason why 
ignorant men and women are sometimes more 
learned in the Scriptures, and more trustworthy 
interpreters than, in many respects, well-furnished 
theologians, Matt. 11 : 25. The Holy Spirit alone 
gives the key to unlock its treasures. A new sense 
must be created by His presence — a spiritual sense — 
or what is taught in Scripture will be misunderstood 
and misinterpreted, or be wrongly applied, or be 
apprehended and taught in the wrong order and in 
improper proportions. Important as this influence 
is, it is never separated from the Scriptures; for 
wherever the Holy Scriptures are read or heard, 
there is the Holy Spirit present, to at once interpret 
whatever strikes the eye or ear. 



CHAPTER III. 



GOD. 



Next to the fact of our own existence, there is 
no truth so deeply fixed in our minds, or so con- 
stantly present to our thoughts, as that of the exist- 
ence of God. No argument is required to establish 
it. It comes to man without and before his ability 
to appreciate any chain of reasoning whereby an 
attempt is made to demonstrate its certainty. It 
is a universal truth. Wherever there are men, there 
the existence of God, and man's accountability to 
God are recognized. Among the most degraded 
men the fact may be greatly obscured, or be so 
thoroughly perverted, that sometimes it cannot be 
readily recognized ; but it is still there. A more 
thorough investigation and closer examination of 
facts will always disclose it. Men have to reason 
themselves away from the thought of God, in order 
to reach the conclusion that this universal testimony 
of man's consciousness is a delusion. 

No one, therefore, has been persuaded to believe 
that there is a God from the arguments adduced in 
Natural Theology ; just, as no one has been 
reasoned into the belief of his own existence by any 



34 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION, 

philosophical demonstrations. As we need no 
demonstration of the existence of an external world, 
so we need no demonstration of the existence of 
God. A careful consideration, however, of the 
arguments ordinarily adduced for the existence of 
God, shows that instead of being proofs, they are 
rather the results of the effort of the human mind 
to analyze the ever-present idea of God. They do 
not so much establish the fact of God's existence, 
as they teach some of His attributes. Thus, the 
so-called cosmological argument, or that from effect 
to cause, affirms His power as operative in Creation 
and Providence. The teleological argument, or 
argument from design, affirms His wisdom and love. 
The ontological argument affirms His infinity. The 
moral argument affirms His holiness and justice. 

We are not persuaded of God's existence by the 
assumption that the thought of God is innate. The 
history of the process by which this thought first 
came to us, is an interesting subject of investiga- 
tion ; but the fact that we have ever before us the 
evidences of His presence is the most important. 
We are not satisfied with looking back to a revela- 
tion which God once made, and tracing its tradition. 
Nearer and clearer and far more overwhelming than 
any argument drawn from innate ideas or historical 
evidences, is the one which meets man face to face 
every day and hour of his life. Everywhere we 
see the traces of an unseen Hand ; everywhere we 
hear the voice of an unseen Speaker. Wherever 



GOD. 35 

we go, we are limited by His power and controlled 
by His wisdom. He breathes in every breath that 
we draw, acts in every act we put forth, and lives 
in all our lives. We know His existence and 
presence just as certainly as we do that of our very 
nearest friend. The mother is no more conscious 
of the life of her child, than we are of that of God. 
We may be isolated from all human beings, and yet 
we can never be alone ; for when we seem most 
alone, we are alone with God. As I look through 
my window, I see a majestic tree. Do I need, in 
order to be sure of its existence, to analyze my con- 
ception of the tree, and to trace the process by 
which it is presented to my consciousness, and to 
gather a large store of arguments to be accurately 
examined by metaphysicians? There it stands, 
and I am not affected in my knowledge of its exist- 
ence by all my reasonings. The convincing argu- 
ment is that of the restored blind man in John 9:25 : 
"One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now 
I see.'' So we know that there is a God, because 
He is inseparable from our thought and experience. 
No argument for the existence of God is 
needed, where Hol}^ Scripture is accepted as an 
authorized record of His revelation ; since this is 
presupposed on every page. These arguments can 
enter into consideration in Theology, only as, with 
the existence of God acknowledged, the various 
elements contained in our conception of God are 
analyzed and traced to their first sources. But, as 



36 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION, 

the truth contained in Holy Scripture, is after all 
only an external matter to the unregenerate man ; 
so the conception of God is weak and faint in the 
unregenerate, when compared to that which is 
attained by the regenerate man, who in his daily 
experience not only has the fact of God's existence 
brought vividly to mind, but who constantly experi- 
ences more and more what God is. The unregen- 
erate man knows that God is; the regenerate man 
has begun to know what God is. This knowledge 
continually grows, but never reaches perfection. 
Even in the world of bliss it passes knowledge. 

The first element that is contained in our con- 
ception of God is that of personality. God is a 
person. Religion is a communion between two 
persons, viz. : between man and God. If God 
were a mere idea or a force, there could be no com- 
munion ; or, if man and God were one, there could 
be no communion, and, therefore, no religion. 
Religion is a relation of person to person, viz.: of 
me here, to God both here and in Heaven. The 
communion between man and God is grounded 
upon the fact that both are personalities. All that 
is involved in the conception of personality, indi- 
viduality, identity, self-consciousness, self-determi- 
nation, is ascribed to God. An idea cannot think, 
an energy cannot act with reflection towards a self- 
determined end, and from self-determined motives ; 
nor is either idea or energy self-conscious. 

The second element in our conception of God 



GOD. 37 

is that of infinity. God is an infinite personalit}\ 
His being transcends our highest thought. Sure as 
we are that we know Him, we are just as sure that 
our knowledge is limited, and that, with all possible 
expansion, it will never exhaust its subject. Man 
cannot comprehend God, because the finite cannot 
contain the infinite. The mysteries of God's being 
that defy all the efforts of our intellects to grasp, 
only confirm the truth of God's revelation; for a 
revelation that has no difficulties, cannot be the reve- 
lation of an infinite God. It is for communion with 
the Infinite that we yearn, and with nothing less 
will the heart be satisfied. We know God then, not 
as He is in Himself, but in so far as He has revealed 
Himself. But while our knowledge is thus limited, 
it is, as far as it goes, none the less real. Nor does 
the fact that this knowledge is finite, render it 
indefinite. It is the surest form of knowledge, 
because it is the self-revelation of the Being upon 
whom all else depends. 

The third element is that of the nearness of 
God to all His creatures. His infinity does not 
render Him distant, but brings Him near to us. He 
is not a God afar off, enthroned above the highest 
star, but He pervades all time and all space with His 
presence, everywhere present and everywhere opera- 
tive, Acts 17 : 27, 28. 

The various forms of scepticism arise from the 
appropriation of one or more elements of truth, and 
emphasizing it to the exclusion of the rest. Poly- 



38 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

theism emphasizes the necessity of the personality 
of God, but defeats its end by ignoring His infinity. 
The multiplication of its deities is a self-contra- 
diction. Pantheism emphasizes the infinity and con- 
stant and omnipresent activity of God, but ignores 
His personality, and thus is involved in another con- 
tradiction. Deism accepts His personality and infi- 
nity, but denies His constant and omnipresent activ- 
ity, thus rendering communion with God, and God's 
revelation of Himself impossible. Agnosticism 
claims that because no complete revelation has 
been made, no partial revelation can be given ; and 
that because we cannot know God as He is in Him- 
self, we cannot know Him at all, or even know that 
He exists. It claims to know to a certainty that 
nothing can be known to a certainty, and thus com- 
mits intellectual suicide. 

The general conception of God expressed 
by the combination of these elements, is made 
still more explicit by the enumeration of the 
Divine Attributes. The attributes of God are not 
mere human conceptions of what God is ; for they 
have existence apart from and independently of our 
conception of them. For this reason, the definition 
of these attributes, as " inadequate conceptions of the 
Divine essence, ' ' once current in the schools, may be 
misleading. It is better to define them as the dis- 
tinguishing characteristics of the Divine essence, or as 
the Divine essence revealing itself in various forms 
and relations. When the knowledge of these attri- 



GOD. 39 

butes enters the human mind, we can speak of the 
impressions made upon man as ( ' inadequate con- 
ceptions," and, in this sense, may define them also 
as ' ' the different relations in which the idea of Cod 
is present to the consciousness of the godly man." 
The attributes cannot be separated from the nature ; 
they are the nature directed or determined in differ- 
ent wa}'s and relations. As God cannot be compre- 
hended, He reveals Himself to finite man by leading 
man to various standpoints from which the simple 
and indivisible nature of God may be regarded. 
While God's nature is not the sum of His attributes, 
our knowledge of His nature is the sum of our 
knowledge of His attributes. 

But this does not imply that the distinction 
between the attributes exists only in the human 
mind, or in the Divine revelation as it accomodates 
itself to the human mind. The distinction is a real 
one, since the relations which they express are differ- 
ent. God's knowledge cannot (e. g.) be identified 
with His will ; for the knowledge includes some 
things that the will excludes. Sin is an object of 
God's knowledge, but not of God's will. 

All God's attributes are essential. In God there 
is no accident, that is, nothing that can be removed. 
Nothing can be added to His essence, and nothing 
can be subtracted from it. He cannot be increased 
or diminished. If the same attributes appear in 
angels or in men, they are accidental to them ; 
while in God, thev are essential. 



40 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

Contrasting the conception of God, derived 
from Holy Scripture, with that of His creatures, as 
seen in the natural world, we must regard every ex- 
cellence of the creature as existing in God in the 
highest perfection ; we must regard every defect of 
the creature, as removed from God, and God as the 
source of all creatures and their excellences. 
The attributes may be classified according to the 
various arguments usually adduced to prove the 
divine existence. The most usual classification, 
however, has been that of immanent and transient, 
sometimes known as negative and positive attributes. 
The former have reference to God as He exists in 
Himself ; the latter to God in His relations to crea- 
tures. Thus Eternity is an immanent attribute, 
and Goodness a transient attribute. 5 These attri- 
butes are specifically enumerated in Holy Scripture. 
In considering them, it will sometimes be found that 
what are presented as two separate attributes, are only 
one fundamental attribute, considered in various re- 
lations. Thus Eternity and Immensity are Infinity ; 
Eternity being Infinity in time, and Immensity being 
Infinity In space. Omnipotence, Omniscience and 
Omnipresence are only the same Infinity in other 
relations. Omnipotence in no way requires that 
everything is attributable to God, but only that 
what is a perfection be ascribed Him. To say that 
God could sin, would be to deny His Holiness ; that 
He could lie, would deny His Truth ; that He could 
cease to exist, would deny His Eternity. When, 



GOD. 41 

then, it is affirmed that it is impossible for God to 
die, we only affirm His Eternity and Immutability. 
We ascribe to God everything that does not imply a 
contradiction in His nature. So His Immensity 
does not deny His power of self-limitation. He was 
united with the humanity of Christ in a different way 
from that in which He subsists in other creatures ; 
and He dwells in the godly in a different way from 
in the ungodly. He is above all limitations, except 
those which He Himself determines. His Omni- 
presence is not by any expansion — all God is every- 
where. As the soul, a finite, simple substance, is 
everywhere present in the body, so God, an infinite, 
simple Substance is everywhere present in the uni- 
verse. 6 

When emphasis is laid upon the free will of 
God it is distinguished from His natural will. The 
natural will is that which is determined by God's 
attributes ; so that, were God to will anything con- 
trary to His natural will, a contradiction would be 
involved. The natural is, therefore, a necessary 
will of God ; it is the inevitable expression of His 
nature. But the free will is where God wills what 
He might have willed otherwise, as when He de- 
vised the plan of redemption, and willed to call Paul 
to the Apostolate. 

The doctrine of the Trinity is deduced by a 
collection of three classes of passages of Holy 
Scripture, viz. : those which teach most clearly the 
divine unity ; those which teach a plurality in God, 



42 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION 

and those which teach that there is a real, and not 
simply a formal or modal distinction indicated by the 
plurality. The entire teaching of Holy Scripture 
from beginning to end, emphasizes the doctrine of 
the unity of God. There is one God, and besides 
Him none other. No less clearly, however, is it 
manifest that the name, the attributes, the works and 
the worship of God belong to the Father, the Son, 
and the Holy Ghost. Repeatedly, also, are they 
contrasted and distinguished from each other. They 
cannot be one person subsisting under three diverse 
forms, or appearing under three diverse manifesta- 
tions. Nor can the Holy Ghost, with His personal 
names, personal works and personal worship, be 
simply a power or energy of God. There are, 
therefore, three persons in the one God. " There is 
one person of the Father, another of the Son, and 
another of the Holy Ghost. * * The Father is 
God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is 
God. * * So there is one Father — not three 
Fathers ; one Son — not three Sons ; one Holy 
Ghost — not three Holy Ghosts. ' ' ( Athanasian Creed. ) 
This is what is meant by the expression, ' ' three 
persons in one essence. ' ' The Church wrestles hard 
with the inadequate terms of human speech to 
describe this mystery. It can only be approxi- 
mately, it cannot be adequately stated in any 
language. "The finite cannot comprehend the 
Infinite. " None of the terms used for this purpose 
convey the precise meaning, that is conveyed when 



GOD. 43 

they are used in common speech. Father and Son 
and Holy Ghost are not distinct persons, in the same 
way that we note the distinct personality of Peter, 
James and John. The term "person" simply 
indicates as the Augsburg Confession declares, " not 
a part or quality in another, but that w 7 hich subsists 
of itself. "7 

There is no conflict between the doctrine of the 
personality of God, and the doctrine of the three 
personalities in the one God. The term " person " 
is used in the two cases for the purpose of emphasiz- 
ing the true conception of God, as over against two 
different classes of errors. When the one God is 
called " one person," it is in antagonism to modern 
Pantheism, which regards Him as an unconscious 
and necessary force working in the world. When 
the one God is called " three persons," it is in 
opposition to ancient Sabellianism and Arianism. 
The seeming conflict is harmonized in the definition 
that God is ' ' three persons in one absolute person- 
ality." 8 

While ' ' in this Trinity none is before or after 
other ; none is greater or less than another," }^et as 
the persons are distinct, there is an order in their 
revelation to men, and in their relation to one an- 
other to which this revelation corresponds. They 
have their distinctive characteristics and works. 
Of these, some are internal, and others external. 
To the former belong the eternal generation of the 
Son by the Father, the sending forth of the Holy 



44 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

Ghost by the Father and the Son, and the procession 
of the Holy Ghost from both Father and Son. Here 
again human language fails to do more than simply 
to suggest what is involved. It must constantly be 
borne in mind that the terms emplo} T ed stand for no 
more than the one aspect of the truth which they 
are intended to designate, and must not be extended 
beyond that which can be manifestly justified by 
Scriptural statements. ' * Father, Son and Holy 
Ghost are one and the same divine essence, regarded 
as begetting, begotten and proceeding. "9 The rela- 
tion of father to son among men is only the 
incomplete reflection of Father to Son in the Trin- 
ity. If it be objected that this relation gives the 
Father a priority of existence, the illustration of the 
ancient divines is at hand, that the sun is no older 
than its rays. 

While no passage of Holy Scripture expressly 
declares that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son 
as well as from the Father, and the only passage on 
the procession, John 15 : 26, refers it to the Father, 
without mention of the Son, nevertheless, the 
doctrine of the double procession rests upon firm 
arguments. The silence concerning the Son does 
not exclude Him. In John 14: 26, the temporal 
sending, which we know from 15 : 26 to refer to 
both Father and Son, is referred to the Father alone. 
The sending of the Holy Ghost from both Father 
and Son, John 15: 26; 16: 7, is a most suggestive 
analogy. He is also called the Spirit of the Son, 



GOD. 45 

Romans 8:9; Galatians 4 : 6. When the equality 
of the Son with the Father is proved from other 
passages, the double procession necessarily follows ; 
since otherwise the subordination of the Son to the 
Father is implied. 

Analogies prove nothing, and furnish more 
points of difference than of resemblance ; but they 
serve to illustrate. Such are the root, the plant, the 
flower and fruit ; the spring, the brook, the river ; 
the sun, with its shape, its light and heat, or the 
illuminating, calorific and chemical qualities of the 
sun's rays ; the three-fold dimensions of space ; the 
three-fold division of time ; the three chords in 
music combined into one tone ; the three parts of a 
proposition (subject, predicate and copula) ; the tri- 
partite nature of man (body, soul and spirit) ; the 
three-fold faculties of the human mind (intellect, 
sensibilities, will). 10 A modern amplification of an 
illustration of Augustine deduces the doctrine of 
the Trinity from the definition of God as love. For 
if God is love, this means one who loves, and one 
who is loved, and " a common object in whom 
their mutual love is triunified," viz. : Father, Son 
and Holy Ghost. " God conceived of as only I, as 
a mere subject, would be absolute egotism, and 
thus the very reverse of love." 11 

Besides the internal characteristics of the per- 
sons of the Trinity, there are also those which are 
external. But here a different relation meets us. 
The internal characteristics are not common . Only 



46 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

the Father begat; only the Son is begotten. In the 
external characteristics {opera ad extra) , all the 
persons participate and are alike active. The dis- 
tinction does not belong to the works themselves, 
but to the prominency with which each person is 
revealed as participating in a work. Thus the 
Father is most prominent in Creation, the Son in 
Redemption, and the Holy Ghost in Sanctification, 
but in no way exclusively or subordinately. In 
each work the Father acts through the Son in the 
Holy Ghost. The three persons being one God, 
are one Creator, one Redeemer, one Sanctifier. 



CHAPTER IV. 



GOD AS CREATOR — ANGEI£. 



The world had a beginning. The act by which 
God gave it a beginning was Creation. It was not a 
mere reforming and reshaping of pre-existing mater- 
ial, but that, property, by which what had previously 
no existence whatever was brought into existence. 
This is known as Immediate Creation. The doctrine 
of a Mediate Creation, or reshaping of what had pre- 
existed, is not inconsistent with that of Immediate 
Creation, but must not be regarded as Creation in the 
proper sense. 

Once God was alone in the Universe. Neither 
spirit or matter was present except in His eternal 
thought. If Creation can be said to be eternal, it is 
only as the purpose of Creation was ever before Him. 

Creation came from God's free will, not from 
His natural will ; since Creation was not a necessity 
of His nature. 12 The world is, therefore, not an 
emanation from God's substance, which would be 
inconsistent with His personality and simplicity. It 
is not a part of God, or God, but a distinct object, 
called forth from absolute nothingness by His com- 
mand. The Omnipotence of God thus comes first 



48 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION, 

to view in Creation, as we confess in the First Article 
of the Apostle's Creed. 

God called other beings into existence, in order 
to communicate to them His own goodness and 
happiness. In communicating these gifts, He mani- 
fests His glory in the highest degree. The glory of 
His power and wisdom is subordinate to the glory of 
His self-communicating goodness. The attributes 
of His nature are employed in the service of His 
beneficent will. 

The anthropocentric doctrine of Creation, is 
clearly taught in Holy Scripture, Ps. 8:6; 115:16. 
God created all things for the sake of man ; and man 
He created for Himself. For while the Order of 
Creation made man low r er than the angels, the ulti- 
mate goal of Redemption was in view, by which man 
was to be exalted above the angels through a salva- 
tion, in the application of which angels were to be 
man's servants. AH things were created that man 
might eternally recognize and enjoy God's goodness, 
and eternally w T orship and adore Him. J 3 

The agent of Creation was the personal Word. 
All things were made by Him, who was made flesh 
and dwelt among us, John 1 : 3, 14. This belongs 
to His office as the Revealer of the counsels of the 
Godhead, Creation being the first act of Revelation. 

Creation and Providence are distinguished form- 
ally, but not in reality. Creation may be regarded 
as the beginning of that activity which is continued 
in Providence, x * or Providence in the widest sense, 



GOD AS CREATOR— ANGELS. 49 

may be made to include Creation. In its visual mean- 
ing, it is restricted to that series of acts by which 
God sustains the creatures whom He has called into 
being, directs them to the end for which He has 
created them, and overrules even their perversity and 
resistance of His will to the highest good of men and 
the glory of His name. 

We cannot treat the doctrine of Providence 
except from the standpoint of Redemption. All our 
conceptions of it are connected with the overruling 
and directing agency of God in a world of sin, for 
the purpose of carrying out to completion His 
redemptive work. While, therefore, the doctrine of 
Providence logically precedes the consideration of 
Redemption, yet it comprises so many particulars 
belonging properly to the latter sphere, that we defer 
it until then. 

In like manner, the doctrine of angels includes 
some details that are presupposed in the treatment of 
sin and redemption, and others which follow it. The 
knowledge afforded on this subject is small. It 
enters into the experience of no Christian of to-day. 
It depends entirely upon the testimony of Scripture 
passages which introduce us to them, only so far as 
they are connected with man's relation to sin and 
redemption. They come only occasionally to notice 
at great epochs in the progress of the Kingdom of 
God. 

They are not the glorified spirits of the departed, 
as popular representations sometimes say. The 



5 o ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

blessed dead are like the angels, Matt. 22 : 30, but 
are not angels. Angels are like men in being created 
and finite spiritual beings ; they differ from men by 
being complete spirits. Man needs a body for the 
completion of his being. Angels -belong to a higher 
order of things than does man. They are independent 
of the limitations and conditions of the world of 
sense. Hence the attributes of invisibility, immateri- 
ality, indivisibility, incorruptibility, are ascribed to 
them. As finite, their presence cannot be the 
Omnipresence of God (repletive) ; but as spirits, 
their presence cannot be subject to the laws of space. 
It is the presence of simple spirits (definitive), a pre- 
sence which cannot be resolved into parts, as the 
different parts of a body have different relations to 
parts of space. This is sometimes called an illocal 
presence, not because it is not presence at a place, but 
because its modes are not subject to the laws of space. 
Like the spiritual part of man's being, they are im- 
mortal, although created with a liability to spiritual 
death. Hence their immutability, when contrasted 
with that of God, is only relative. When they 
become visible, it is through bodies which they have 
temporarily assumed. 

All their relation to men is only that of one 
finite cause to another. Their activity cannot abso- 
lutely destroy the powers of nature or man's free 
will. They make use of the means pertaining to the 
spheres within which they work, either by assuming 
human forms or employing the forces of Nature, 



GOD AS A CREATOR— ANGELS. 51 

Ps. 114:4; Heb. 1 : 7. Their connection with the 
world in which we live does not appear to be a con- 
stant or habitual one ; it has all the rarity of a 
miracle, and marks certain great epochs or most im- 
portant events in the development of God's purposes. 
The exception in the case of Satan, belongs to the 
perversion of his original creation. 

All our knowledge of angels is subordinate to 
the knowledge we have of man. Their existence, 
nature and works, their original condition, the test 
to which they were subjected, and the two classes 
into which they were subsequently divided, have 
been revealed, in order that we may understand the 
better man's own relations and destiny and history. 



CHAPTER V. 



GOD AS CREATOR — MAN. 



Man came into existence by a special creative 
act of God. Even though theistic evolutionists 
were able to establish their claims — for which they 
have given no sufficient evidence — that man's body 
has come from the dust of the ground through a 
process of gradual development from the lower 
animals, this by no means explains man's higher 
life, which alone makes man man. The body with- 
out the spirit, * ' breathed into his nostrils ' ' by God, 
Gen. 2 : 7, is not man. 

The immaterial principle in human nature, is 
in Holy Scripture sometimes called soul, and some- 
times spirit. Man is sometimes said to be composed 
of soul and body, and, at other times, of spirit and 
body. In other passages, soul and spirit are con- 
trasted with, each other. The distinction is not 
between two different things, or parts, but the refer- 
ence is to the same immaterial thing, as viewed on its 
earthward and on its heavenward side, or between 
the lower and the higher qualities of man's spiritual 
nature. They are not separate parts of man's being, 
but are clearly distinguished ; the soul referring to 



GOD AS A CREATOR— MAN. 53 

the subject of life, and the spirit 1 ^ to that subject as 
endowed with a peculiar divinely-communicated 
life. 

The image of God, in which man was created, 
was not properly-speaking man's personality. This 
was only the ground or basis of the image. Like 
God, man has self-consciousness, and, within certain 
limitations, man has also freedom. Philosophically 
speaking, these may be described as factors of the 
image. But they do not constitute or belong to the 
image which Holy Scripture describes as man's 
original endowment, and as lost by the Fall. This 
was rather " the reflection of the infinite, divine ful- 
ness of attributes in the finite spirit of man," 16 so 
that what belongs to God as an infinite, was found 
in man as a finite being. What belonged to God 
absolutely, belonged to man relatively. Hence man 
was not the image of God, as the Son is said to be 
in Heb. 1:3; Col. 1:15, but he was created in the 
image, after the likeness of God, Gen. 1 : 26. The 
Son of God was, therefore, the model according to 
which man was created. The attributes of God 
which were particularly prominent in man, and 
whose importance can be estimated by their loss, 
are those of knowledge, righteousness and holiness, 
Col. 3 : 10 ; Eph. 4 : 24. 

Hence this image was not man's nature, but a 
determination of this nature, or mode in which the 
nature existed. Nor, on the other hand, was it 
something added to the nature ; for the image was 



54 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

contemporaneous with the origin of man's nature. 
The possibility of its loss without the destruction of 
the nature, indicated simply a possibility of a change 
of condition. 

Man was created to be completely happy and 
completely holy. As the image of God, he was to 
reflect in a finite creature, the happiness and holi- 
ness of the infinite Creator. 17 Without this image, 
there can be happiness as little as there can be 
holiness. Where the image has been lost, the sole 
hope of happiness lies in the restoration of the 
image. 

Holy and happy as man was when created, 
there were within him possibilities for the infinite 
development of all that the divine image included. 
The reflection of the Infinite within the finite, 
implied that the finite should ever approach more 
nearly to the perfection of the Infinite. The image 
of God in Adam was only the feeblest germ of 
what was to proceed from it. The acorn may be as 
perfect, in its sphere, as the oak ; but this does not 
imply that the one is not intended to grow into the 
other. The perfection of humanity is dependent 
upon the unfolding of its capacities, as the perfection 
of the seed requires that it should germinate and 
yield fruit. 

Connected with this possibility of infinite 
development, was also the possibility of a fall and 
the loss of the image. The highest perfection was 
in fact to be attained by a struggle with a deterrent 



GOD AS A CREATOR— MAN. 55 

force. The capacity for higher holiness was to be 
gained by the knowledge of that with which it is 
directly contrasted. Negative holiness was to be 
succeeded by a positive and aggressive holiness, 
which was to prove itself in contact w T ith evil. 
The highest happiness was to emerge from an 
experience with the misery which is its opposite. 
God's glory itself was to be most brilliantly dis- 
played upon the background of sin and guilt. 



CHAPTER VI. 



SIN. 



Through this experience of humanity, the 
angels had already passed. The possibility of a 
fall by the abuse of their free wills was the condi- 
tion by which the perfection of the angelic nature 
was attained. In the contact and conflict with evil, 
all angelic attributes on the part of those who bore 
the test, advanced to a higher stage and a wider 
range. It was their native endowment to have the 
capacity to reach a perfection which would be 
beyond the power of any abuse of their free wills. 
Absolute moral immutability is an attribute of God 
alone. The moral immutability of men and angels 
is relative and derived. That some fell and others 
did not, was due to no difference in the grace which 
God bestowed. No angel was created, no man was 
created or born with such support from God, that 
he could not be otherwise than holy, or do other- 
wise than right. To claim that for man, is to claim 
for man an attribute of God. The mystery of the 
permission of a fall, ultimately must resolve itself 
into the question why man was not invested with 
other divine attributes, or must lead to such un- 



S/N. 57 

answerable questions concerning man's original 
condition when contrasted w T ith his future destiny, 
as, e. g-. } why the body of Adam w r as not endowed 
with the spiritual properties which are to belong to 
the resurrection body. It is enough to learn from His 
declared will what was God's purpose, and not 
to inquire concerning the reasons that God has not 
revealed. 

We cannot trace the origin of evil beyond the 
fact that a being higher than man, created in holi- 
ness, voluntarily turned from God and became 
God's enemy. It is needless to speculate as to 
what w T as the particular sin from temptation to 
which Satan fell, or as to whether since the tempta- 
tion was self-originated, the fall had not already 
occurred with the suggestion of the sin. Nothing 
but labyrinths open from such questions. 

The attempts in modern times to discredit the 
Biblical doctrine of a personal devil are readily 
answered. The absence cf a personal tempter, who 
first fell himself, and then led others into ruin, 
implies greater difficulties than can be alleged 
against his presence. When it is urged that there 
could be no motive for a fall, it is answered that, 
whatever may have been the motive, the fall con- 
sisted in the turning of his free will towards the obj ect 
presented, and away from God. "That the devil 
has fallen from pride, means only that, by an act of 
his free will, he perverted his original humility into 
diabolical pride." 18 The presence cf the alterna- 



58 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

tive of good or evil as a possibility, and the con- 
sciousness of that alternative on his part did not 
imply a defect of his nature. It only furnished 
what was intended to advance the higher develop- 
ment of his angelic perfection . It became evil by 
the wrong determination of his free will towards it. 

If it be objected that Satan's persistence in sin 
is inconsistent with the remarkable prudence and 
knowledge that is ascribed to him, even since the 
fall, the answer is at hand, that illustrations of 
such inconsistency can be readily furnished in the 
experience of men. Sin is proverbially short- 
sighted. Whatever cunning may attend it, is so 
biased by impulse that it defeats itself. The most 
exquisite acuteness and quickness are often com- 
bined with the most defective judgment. Mere 
knowledge is no barrier to a fall. 

If the possibility of any organized empire of 
evil under Satan as leader be denied because of the 
antagonism of the demons to one another, an 
effectual answer is supplied by conspiracies of 
wicked men. Bands of robbers have their chiefs 
and their laws. Schemes of fraud and violence are 
not infrequently thoroughly organized. 

The personality of Satan is not, therefore, a 
non-fundamental doctrine. With it stand or fall 
the Biblical doctrines of sin and redemption. Nullus 
diaboluSy melius redemptor. 

The fact that it was a pure spirit, with whom 
sin originated, answers the suggestion more fre- 



SIN. 59 

quently underlying certain conceptions of sin, than 
formally expressed, that sin is more or less closely 
connected with that which is material, or corporeal. 
Sin was the act of a free spirit turning from God. 
Sin has been diffused by the continued agency of a 
spirit upon other spirits. Incidently or accidently, 
matter is used only as the organ or instrument of 
the sin of the spirit. 

The fall of Satan was followed by the fall of 
other holy spirits. While to Satan the temptation 
came from within, to them the temptation came from 
without, John 8 : 44. With the loss of holiness, 
they suffered also an impairment of all the qualities 
which belonged to their nature. Great as is their 
power, Eph. 6: 12, it is limited to such a degree 
that, by God's grace, feeble men and women over- 
come it. Their punishment has already begun. 
Much as they rage against God, and direct their 
efforts against His kingdom, they are, nevertheless, 
in chains, 2 Pet. 2:4; Jude, ver. 6, and anticipate 
the coming wrath of God on the Day of Judgment, 
Matt. 8 : 29. 

As sin precedtd man's sin, and as man's sin 
was simply the result of a contagion of sin which 
he could have repelled and prevented from finding 
lodgment within him, a consideration of the nature 
of sin itself very appropriately comes before the 
account of man's fall. 

Sin is to be otherwise than God means us to 
be, and to do otherwise than God means us to do. 



60 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

It presupposes freedom. For whatever be God's 
will with respect to angels and men, He does not 
will that, against their own will, they shall comply 
with His will. The holiness of the creature con- 
sists alone in the harmonizing of his will with that 
of God. Sin has its root and nature in the deter- 
mination of the freewill away from God. If angels 
or men ultimately attain a stage of perfection, in 
which they are removed from the possibility of 
doing otherwise, or being otherwise than God 
desires, such impeccability is not an original en- 
dowment, but is the fruit and reward of effort and 
struggle. The holiness in which men and angels 
were created was an undeveloped holiness, viz., a 
potential, but not an absolute impeccability. 

Nevertheless, God had for humanity a goal 
that He wished it to attain, and which he placed 
within its power. His permission did not imply 
indifference as to the result. There was but one 
choice which could meet His approval. Wherever 
a choice different from this is found, there is sin. 

The choice which would meet God's approval 
He has defined in His Law. Sin is the want of con- 
formity w 7 ith God's Law. The Law is the declara- 
tion of the immutable will of God concerning what 
He would have us be, do or omit to do. Hence, 
sin can be just as properly described as the want of 
conformity with God's will, as the w r ant of con- 
formity w T ith God's Law, since the Law is only the 
will as proclaimed and enjoined. 



SIN. 6 1 

As also the Law demands of us as truly what 
we must be, as what we must do, a temper, a 
disposition, a habit of mind and thought, as well as 
acts of obedience, sin is as truly a state, as it is an 
act, the being otherwise than God wishes us 
to be, as well as the doing otherwise than God 
wishes us to do. When God's Law requires us to 
love God with all our hearts, the not loving God 
is as truly sin, as any act of transgression it were 
possible for us to commit. ^ 

The state of sin, however, was entered, on the 
part of angels and men, by a particular act of sin. 
The habit of obedience to God once broken, a state 
of sin followed, all whose acts were also sin. 

The relation of men to one another, differs 
from that of angels to one another. This results 
in a difference in the relation of the first sin of 
angels to that of the rest, from that of the first sin 
of men to that of other men. The angels were 
without organic union with one another. Each 
angel stood or fell by and for himself. The fall of 
no one carried others down with him. For the 
angels neither begat, nor were begotten. There 
could be no race sin. But all men have an organic 
relation with one another. The sum total of 
humanity was in the first pair. By their obedience, 
the race would have risen above the possibility of 
a fall. By their disobedience, the whole race fell 
with them into the state of sin. The ability to love 
and fear God was lost by the race. By the abuse 



62 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

of the free will of our first parents, the race became 
otherwise than God meant that it should be. The 
original righteousness and holiness were lost. Man 
could no longer be what God w T ould have him, if 
he would ; and he would not, if he could. Not only 
was the ability to serve God lost, but the w 7 ill was 
directed against all that pleased God. Man not 
only ceased to love God, but he delighted in what- 
ever displeased God. All of man's endowments 
and faculties were perverted and disordered. As 
the children inherited the diseases and sufferings 
of their parents, so also, they inherited their sin. 
The race sin incurred by Adam, became the com- 
mon property of all his descendants. The personal 
sins resulting from Adam's first sin were not propa- 
gated, but the one sin, both in act and state, from 
which they came, descended from father to child. 20 
Just as indissolubly connected as are holiness 
and happiness, are sin and misery. Righteousness 
and God's favor, guilt and God's wrath belong 
together. The union of God with man, was man's 
life, as first created ; the sunderance of God from 
man by man's apostacy and sin, was his death. 
For what the soul is to the bod}^ that God is to the 
soul. Man had turned from God, and involuntarily 
lost God, and could not regain Him, until God 
would Himself re-enter into a communion of life 
and love with man. 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE WAGES OF SIN. 



The effects of sin were not realized at once. 
The first act was simply the beginning of an infinite 
series. From the state of sin, there was to come a 
process, that, if not interminable, was, at all events, 
not to be terminated. With sin, came death, 
designated from its three-fold stages, death spiritual, 
temporal and eternal. 

Death spiritual occurred instantaneously with 
man's sin. A soul without God is already dead. 
It is absolutely incapable of disposing itself in 
any way in harmony with God's will. The freedom 
of the will in external things remains to an extent ; 
but the freedom of the will in spiritual things is 
absolutely gone. The will of a sinful man is free to 
choose between two alternatives, or to accept or 
reject an offered object ; but whatever alternative it 
chooses, and whether it accept or reject what is 
offered, it only sins. It is absolutely helpless in 
spiritual things, until God bestows upon it new 
powers by re-uniting man to Himself, and infusing 
within man a new life. 21 Spiritual death, however, 
implies growth in moral corruption. The potencies 



64 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

of evil are more and more unfolded. The career 
downward continues with ever increasing force. A 
sinful race deteriorates, as time advances, and indi- 
viduals are hardened in crime with their years. A 
most graphic picture of this is portrayed by St. Paul 
at the close of the first chapter of Romans. The 
process continues not simply by the natural develop- 
ment of evil, but especially by the active agency of 
Satan, to whose control the children of disobedience 
have been consigned. In this state of spiritual 
death, all descendants of Adam and Eve were born. 
Temporal death is only another stage of the 
process. As men linger for years, dying inch by inch 
from a fatal wound, that is gradually sapping their 
strength, so the death of the body begins with the 
death of the soul. As the process of decomposition 
begins the moment the soul has left the body, so the 
moment man sinned, the body became the abode of 
diseases and pains, of which it had previously been 
incapable, " In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou 
shalt surely die " (Gen. 2:17), had thus a literal ful- 
filment. The soul would undoubtedly have been at 
once removed from the body, if it had not been for 
the interposition of redemption. The future sacri- 
fice on Calvary, was prospectively interposed for the 
sins of the world, and, through this interposition, 
humanity continued to exist on earth, and to 
develop, with the prospect of recovery for every 
soul infected with the contagion, as it descends 
from parent to child. 



THE WAGES OF SIN. 65 

The full penalty of sin is eternal death. The 
essence of eternal death is eternal sin and eternal 
guilt. Eternal death, is to be separated from God 
without any hope of reunion with Kim. It is to 
feel the misery cf sin, and to be conscious of the 
impossibility of redemption. It is to be brought 
face to face w T ith guilt, without the intervention 
of that Divine mercy which delayed the complete 
execution of the sentence of the Fall. It has its 
stages and degrees. It begins with the separation 
of the soul from the body. In a world of conscious 
pain and misery, the soul awakens when it passes 
from this life. It is full of regrets for the lost oppor- 
tunities and abused privileges of earth. It is in 
anguish over the remembrance of sins. It has not 
lost all its sympathies for those whom it has left 
behind, and before whom it clearly perceives the 
same judgment impending, beneath w 7 hich it is suf- 
fering. Still more dreadful is the prospect which 
rises before it in the future. Poignant as is the sor- 
row, directly succeeding death, another crisis is 
approaching w 7 ith the Day of Judgment. What 
man has suffered before in the soul alone, he must 
suffer then w r ith increased severity in body and soul. 
Only then does he enter the place prepared for the 
devil and his angels, and meet the full penalty for 
the things done in his body. What occurs with the 
fallen angels, occurs also with man. Although cast 
down and delivered into chains of darkness, what is 
peculiarly the "time" of their torment aw T aits them. 



66 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

There is not the least glimmer of hope of any 
cessation or alleviation of the punishment for those 
who suffer eternal death. It is a death which does 
not bring any absolute extinction or annihilation. 
When called " destruction," the process only 
whereby God's wrath descends eternally, is most 
forcibly described. The doctrine of ' ' conditional 
immortality ' ' has no warrant in God's Word. 
Shrink from the contemplation of the ceaseless, 
conscious miseries of those who eternally sin, as we 
may, the reality is not lessened. We can only pray 
God to be delivered from the penalties our sins have 
merited, and be diligent as instruments to bring 
God's grace and mercy to others. Neither can we 
find any warrant for the hope that there may be 
repentance after death, and that those who have 
persevered in sin to the last moment of life, may be 
reclaimed in the world to come. The state of both 
righteous and unrighteous will then be unalterably 
fixed. 



PART II. 

THE PREPARATION OF 
REDEMPTION. 



67 



CHAPTER VIII. 



THE GROUND AND GOAL OF REDEMPTION. 



The entire race lias fallen. -Every human being 
has lost his opportunity for being so confirmed in 
good by an act of his free will, as to be beyond the 
possibility of losing holiness and God's favor. The 
possibility has been followed by a fearful reality. 
Humanity has become a mass of corruption. Evety- 
where there is only sin and ruin. The only prospect 
of any change is as the ruin and corruption become 
still more intense, or still further unfold capacities 
of guilt and suffering. God has done His part to 
bring man to the highest holiness and happiness ; 
but man has repelled God's effort. If there be no 
new interference on God's part, man will perish by 
his own fault. God can, in no way, be chargeable 
with man's death. It would have been only just , if the 
w T hole race had been eternally deserted to the conse- 
quences of its rejection of God. Salvation could 
be asked for, not on the ground of justice, but solely 
of mercy. The smallest particle of mercy shown, 
could not be used, as the basis of any complaint 
why more mercy should not be shown. God would 



70 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

not be unjust, if His mercy would not be as com- 
prehensive as His justice. 

The fallen angels were justly left to the full 
consequences of their transgression. If man's lot 
had been the same, he would not have been wronged. 
Since man's lot is different, the fallen angels are not 
wronged. Injustice cannot be complained of, where 
there is the suffering only of that which is the just 
due of the sufferer. If, then, God had determined 
by some other means, to satisfy the demands of His 
justice for but one man who was condemned to 
eternal death, and to free him from the consequences 
of the Fall, there could have been no just complaint 
on the part of the numberless millions to whom such 
mercy would not have been shown. God is free to 
show mercy to whom He will show mercy ; and the 
withholding of mercy is no act of injustice. If His 
mercy would comprehend ten or a hundred, or a 
thousand, or a million of elect, none passed by 
would be wronged. Nor would He be unjust, if all 
mankind except a million, or a thousand, or a hun- 
dred would be forgiven. The case is extreme, but 
nevertheless it is true, — if His mercy were such that 
a plan of Salvation would be provided for all the hu- 
man race, except for me, — if I alone of all who have 
ever lived, or who are to live, would be passed by, 
where would be the injustice, as long as I am 
enduring no more than the just recompense of my 
sin? Because I may choose to forgive a debtor his 
debt, there is no obligation resting upon me to cancel 



THE GROUND AND GOAL OF REDEMPTION. 71 

the debts of all who owe me. Nor does my cancel- 
ing the debts even of most of my debtors, bind me 
to extinguish those of all. A debtor can ask for 
favors, but he cannot demand them as rights. Not 
upon the grounds of abstract justice, but solely 
upon those of the revelation of His purpose must 
our determination of the extent of any plan of grace 
God may devise, depend. 

For God has a plan of grace for fallen men. It 
is as eternal as God's knowledge of man's Fall. 
God created man, in order to redeem him. Redemp- 
tion is no after-thought in God's mind, simply for 
the purpose of counteracting and thwarting what He 
either could or would not prevent. We may sepa- 
rate in our thoughts the Orders of Creation and 
Redemption, but they could not be separated in 
God's thought. The world was created, in order 
that, in Redemption, it might be the theatre for the 
display of God's love. However marred and defaced 
by sin, these blemishes are only to be made to con- 
tribute to a higher glory. All the pain and suffer- 
ing that sin has brought, from the standpoint of 
Redemption, point to a closer union with, and a 
higher enjoyment of God. What is lost in Adam is 
far more than regained in Christ. Where sin 
abounded, grace is to super-abound. By the Order 
of Creation, man is made a little lower than the 
angels ; by the Order of Redemption, he is raised 
above the angels. According to the mind and pur- 
pose of God, who sees the end from the beginning, 



72 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

and, who comprehends in one simple plan, what 
seem to us to be diverse or complex plans, man was 
created, in order, by the appropriation of Redemp- 
tion, through a long continued conflict with sin, to 
attain among God's countless creatures and highest 
intelligences, the very next place to the throne of 
God Himself. Man was created, in order that God 
might assume man's nature, cover all the faults and 
defects of that nature, pay the penalty for all the 
sins and bear all the sorrows of that nature, that 
man's nature, thus redeemed, might rise from 
its humiliation and mortality, to share eternally the 
blessedness and glory of God's own nature. 22 



CHAPTER IX. 



god's eternal purpose. 



Redemption, on the one hand, is as compre- 
hensive as the ruin wrought in human nature by 
sin ; on the other, it is limited to only a portion of 
the human race. It is as comprehensive in its pro- 
visions as it is limited in its realization. As it was 
God's will that humanity should persevere in its 
concreated holiness, only so far as man's exercise 
of his free will towards the offered good and evil 
would not be interfered with, so it was God's pur- 
pose that all should enjoy redemption, provided the 
power of the decision of man's free w r ill against the 
offered good be not destroyed. Grace has to do 
with persons, and their very personality implies, 
along with self- consciousness, self-determination. 
While man is helpless to deliver himself, or to pre- 
pare himself for divine grace, or even to respond 
to this grace as it approaches him, and thus his 
acceptance of God's grace comes from new powers 
which grace has brought, nevertheless, the freedom 
of the will is still preserved in man's ability to 
resist God's grace. All man's help must thus come 
from God ; all his ruin comes from himself. 



74 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

The provisions of Redemption, therefore, are 
ample for all. Not only do the Holy Scriptures 
declare that they are sufficient for all, but directly 
and explicitly that they have been made and are 
intended for all. Every human life that enters this 
world is that of a redeemed child of God. Every 
child is born, both a child of wrath and a child of 
grace. It is a child of wrath, since by inheritance 
its state is that of spiritual death. It is a child of 
grace, in so far as it has been comprised in the 
Scheme of Redemption and the love and mercy of 
God that devised the scheme, go forth in efforts for 
the application to it of this Redemption . It remains 
a child of wrath so far as the efforts of divine grace 
to aid it are defeated by the persevering resistance 
of its will. It becomes a child of grace, not only 
potentially, but in reality, when divine grace over- 
comes the natural resistance of its will, and it sub- 
mits to God ; the state of regeneration succeeding 
that of spiritual death. 

The results of this contact of divine grace 
with every human heart have been comprehended 
in the divine Omniscience from all eternity. God 
knows fully the end from the beginning. He has 
ever held in His memory and surveyed the secrets 
of all hearts. The so-called " instantaneous pro- 
cess " of photography records upon a plate move- 
ments so rapid, that, in reality, they occupy an 
inconceivable fraction of a second. The rider at full 
speed seems arrested, in order to be pictured. So 



GOD'S ETERNAL PURPOSE. 75 

to God, not only the acts of every instant, even of 
the most minute fraction of a second, are known, 
but the entire process in its whole extent is dis- 
played. From all eternity, God knows in wkcm 
His regenerating grace would reach its intended 
result, and among whom it would encounter that 
prolonged resistance which it is not His will to 
remove. God, from all eternity, has known those 
who are His. 

The Plan of Redemption thus provided, was 
not one in which mercy was to be exercised at the 
expense of justice. Every punishment which 
justice would impose must be inflicted. Not the 
least burden the Law required could be removed. 
Sin had been committed, and the penalty of sin in 
its fullest extent had to be paid. This penalty 
could neither be extinguished nor commuted. 
Eternal death, and nothing less, is the wages cf sin. 
Man could be delivered only after he, cr else after 
some one for him, would suffer eternal death. But 
when could a finite creature ever discharge an infinite 
obligation ? Were all good angels and archangels 
to combine in an effort to pay the penalty which 
but one member of the human race had merited, 
they would only be offsetting an infinite debt by a 
finite payment. 

If, however, an infinite debt was to be paid, 
how 7 could the Infinite enter into the sphere of the 
finite, so as to be able to pay a debt ? How could* 
the Immutable suffer ? How could the Immortal 



76 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION 

die ? It is useless to speculate as to whether any- 
other mode were possible. It is enough to trace 
the plan adopted by God, rather than to waste 
time and energy in attempting to prove that even 
God could not devise another. The plan devised 
and clearly described in the New Testament is one 
by which the Son of God, co-equal and co-eternal 
with the Father, assumed the human nature into 
the unity of His person. From the moment of His 
conception by the Holy Ghost, of the Virgin Mary, 
the person forever had two natures inseparably 
united ; so that the person could suffer and die 
in His human nature, which was ever sustained 
under the aggregation of the sins of the world, by 
all the infinite power and merit of the divine nature. 
The infinite obligation of man was thus discharged, 
and at the same time infinite merit procured for 
man. The work of man's divinely-human sub- 
stitute was thus to be accounted as though it had 
actually been wrought by man himself. 2 3 

This plan which was executed in time, was in 
God's purpose from all eternity. Christ was thus 
the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world ; 
t f e., because His sacrifice for man's sin was eter- 
nally foreknown, and eternally taken into the 
account in God's estimate of man. But this plan, 
as devised from Eternity, was occupied not simply 
with the procural of Redemption, but also with the 
'application of it. Even then, while God was recon- 
ciled to all men in Christ, He was reconciled to 



GOD'S ETERNAL PURPOSE. 77 

none outside of Christ. All were forgiven in Christ ; 
none were forgiven outside of Christ. That Re- 
demption should be realized, those for whom it was 
intended had to be brought to such relation to 
Christ, that they could be said to be " in Christ." 
A series of agencies -for applying Redemption, or 
bringing Christ to men, and men to Christ, is, 
therefore, also devised. The gift of the Holy Spirit, 
the efficiency of the Holy Spirit in the means of 
grace, the various stages of His applying work, 
until Redemption would reach its goal in life eter- 
nal, all were comprehended in the plan. Whatever 
result of divine grace was reached in time, belonged 
to God's Eternal Purpose. Every step in the call- 
ing, illumination, regeneration, justification, sancti- 
fication and glorification of believers — the entire 
positive side of every Christian life, from the first 
approach of the means of grace to it, until the hour 
of death, the entrance into another world, the resur- 
rection of the dead, the Judgment Day, and the 
session with the Lord in glor} r , occurs as each was 
foreordained from Eternity, and as the result of this 
foreordination. Every saving act of God, for and 
in, and through us, comes from this source. There 
is a stream bearing the child of God onward with 
ever increasing volume and force, which rises far 
distant in the infinite heights of God's love, and is 
lost again in the ocean of indescribable glory and 
happiness, which is its goal. In this sense, it is 
just as true that men are elected to faith, as that 



78 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

they are elected to salvation ; for all that is of God 
in the application of Redemption, is the fruit of 
God's election. 

But God's purpose has nothing to do with the 
unbelief and resistance, the sin and condemnation of 
men. God's Eternal Plan of Redemption has to do 
with the salvation, and not with the destruction of 
men. It has to do only with the arrest of the 
processes of corruption that belong to spiritual death. 
Eternal death is the issue of man's election of sin, 
and his self-determination to sin. If no soul is 
saved, except through God's purpose and work, 
according to this purpose, no soul is lost except by 
man's own preference for sin. Every resistance of 
offered grace, every inability to respond to God's 
call, all apathy with respect to spiritual things, 
comes from man's own powers, and not from God's 
purpose. Predestination is not a generic term with 
two species, one Predestination to Life, known as 
Election, and the other Predestination to Death, 
known as Reprobation. All Predestination is also 
Election. Men are said to be reprobate, only as 
they are foreseen from Eternity adhering to the 
Order of Sin and Death, and claiming for them- 
selves the ability — which every man has — to exclude 
the saving grace of God. Thus, the Scriptural 
doctrine of Predestination, while claiming for God 
the sole glory for, and making Him the sole 
cause of man's salvation, is most carefully guarded 
from all Fatalism, since every elect and regenerate 



GOD'S ETERNAL PURPOSE. 79 

man could, by his own will, be otherwise than he is, 
while it is alone by God's will that he is, as he is. 
If the resistance of God's will, at all times possible 
in this life, had occurred or would occur, the Divine 
Omniscience would have recorded it from Eternity, 
and he would not be numbered among the elect, 
i. e., those who believe unto the end. 

It is in time that this plan of salvation becomes 
manifest. Ever}' true treatment of God's Eternal 
Plan must be occupied with the revelation of that 
plan, and the carrying out of its provisions in time. 
We learn to know the doctrine of Predestination, 
not by speculating concerning what may be God's 
secret will, but by studying His will as manifested 
in the Gospel. Whatever God determined from all 
Eternity to do for man's salvation, the Gospel 
proclaims and declares. The Gospel is not to be 
interpreted by a doctrine of Predestination, but Pre- 
destination is to be interpreted by the Gospel. 
Every provision of Divine Grace, contained in the 
Gospel, as proclaimed in time, was in the Divine 
Plan from all Eternity. If God justifies men in 
time by faith, He determined from all Eternity, 
that they should be justified by faith. He elect- 
ed them from Eternity to be justified and eternally 
saved by faith. What that means we must learn 
from the Order of Salvation proclaimed in time. 
We read God's will in the Gospel, and that is all 
we need know. 24 



CHAPTER X. 



PROVIDENCE AND ITS RELATIONS TO REDEMPTION. 



We know of the doctrine of Providence only 
from the standpoint of Redemption. We have no 
revelation concerning Providence, apart from the 
provision which was being made for the carrying 
out of God's Eternal purposes of love for man. 
For the center of Providence is man. As all 
things were created, so all things are preserved 
for the sake of man, and directed towards the 
attainment of the end, which, notwithstanding 
man's departure from the plan which was offered in 
Creation, is, nevertheless, by Redemption, in store 
for man. 

The very mention of " Preservation " implies 
the presence of disorganizing and disrupting forces, 
whose activity must be counteracted. All Creation 
has been made to suffer for man's sin, and tends of 
itself to ruin. But a greater power is constantly 
interposed. One force is balanced by another. An 
irregularity in one direction corrects an irregularity 
on the opposite side ; and so the frame of Nature 
stands, as the ground, upon and through which 
God's power is to work within a higher sphere. 



PROVIDENCE AND REDEMFTION. 81 

Nature is made the servant of Redemption. In 
all things it is subordinate to the Supernatural, for 
which it continues to exist. The so-called Laws of 
Nature are only God's ordinary modes of acting 
through Nature. To claim that God cannot act 
otherwise than by them, is to make the Supernatural 
subordinate to the Natural, or rather to absolutely 
deny the existence of the Supernatural ; and to deny 
the existence of the Supernatural is to deny the 
existence of God. The Natural and the Super- 
natural are not as distant as are often imagined. 
They refer to God's ordinary and extraordinary, 
His visible and invisible modes of working. All 
that is Natural has also a Supernatural side. 

More mysterious than God's Preservation is 
His Concurrence with created things. He lives in 
all that lives, and acts in ail that acts. All energy 
comes ultimately from God. All motion is not 
partly from God and partly from the creature, but 
the activity of God and the creature are one and the 
same. It is more than a brilliant poetical figure we 
employ, when the thunder is called the voice of 
God. He lightens and burns in every flame, rushes 
forth in every storm, and breathes in every breeze, 
and blooms in every flower. When I raise my 
arm or use my pen, God works in and through me, 
and, in every stroke I make, He makes His pres- 
ence felt. I can do nothing, in and through which 
He does not also work. 

The greatest difficulty lies in the application of 



82 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

this doctrine to the sinful acts of men. But it van- 
ishes when the distinction is observed, that sin does 
not lie in the activity of the creature, but in the 
determination of the activity to a sinful end. The 
external act of Eve in stretching her hand towards 
the fruit was not sinful, but the determination of the 
act to what God had forbidden, w T as sinful. The 
act is the same externally, whether as a soldier I 
slay an enemy of my country in battle, or, as the 
head of a family, shoot a robber who has broken 
into my house, or as the victim of fierce passion, 
murder my friend. The moral quality of the act 
must be measured by its relation to God's will; 
and for its determination in that regard, I am 
responsible. Every creature of God is good ; the 
perversion of the creature to a use God has not 
sanctioned, is sin. The electricity which permeates 
a wire is an energy derived from God ; but when, 
by the carelessness of men, it carries with it death, 
the guilt is man's. The wheels of the locomotive 
are not responsible for the life of the man who has 
thrown himself before their resistless progress. 
Man is responsible for the use of the Divine Energy 
which God has placed at his disposition. The old 
scholastic distinction is worthy of being continually 
employed, that it is not the effect, but the defect in 
an action that is sin. 

If such be God's concurrence, even with what 
is evil and sinful, His concurrence with what is 
good is still more marked. All that is good is 



PROVIDENCE AND REDEMPTION. 83 

either God, or from God. His relation with that 
outside of Himself which is good, is far more than 
that of concurrence. He is, in the first place, its 
Author; and then He concurs w r ith the development 
of the new endowments, and the exercise of the 
new powers which He has implanted. All the 
workings of Divine Grace, although ordinarity 
referred to another sphere, are, in reality, only 
forms of Providential control and efficiency. In 
grace the movements of Providence are specialized 
and intensified. 

God's concurrence with what is good leads it, 
above all obstacles, to the end which both God and 
the sanctified creature, by God's inspiration and 
guidance, have in view. His concurrence, how- 
ever, w r ith what is evil, overrules the evil, and con- 
verts the very energy employed by the creature for 
the purpose of antagonizing and obstructing His 
work, into an instrumentality for furthering His 
higher and vaster plans. Satan prepared his own 
punishment when he led humanity into sin ; since 
humanity became the instrument for his destruction, 
(Gen. 3 : 15). The greater his rage, as the history 
of the race advanced, the more signal his defeat. 
The most stupendous error of all was when he put 
to death God's Son, and thus contributed towards 
Redemption. The sons of Jacob sold their brother into 
bondage, and thus provided for him advancement and 
honor, that he could not otherwise have secured, and 
by this means, ultimately made themselves his beggars 



84 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION, 

and bondsmen. In selling him to the traders, they sold 
themselves to him. While the King of Assyria had no 
other thought in mind, but that of secular dominion, 
God used him as the rod of His anger upon degen- 
erate Israel (Isa. 10 : 5, 7). Even the most insig- 
nificant events of life have thus far-reaching conse- 
quences. Saul went out to seek asses, and found a 
kingdom (1 Sam. 9). The disturbed sleep of Ahas- 
uerus (and this may have come from the buzzing of a 
gnat) brings salvation to the Jews, and a change in 
the ministry of his empire. All events are connected 
with one another by a hidden chain. God's pur- 
poses admit of human freedom, and take all the fore- 
seen determinations of that freedom into the account, 
just as the builder selects different materials for a 
work which he projects. As from diverse colored 
stones the skillful artist will make mosaics that have 
the finish of elaborate paintings, so God uses for 
His designs, the diversified and seemingly antago- 
nistic elements contributed by human freedom. Not 
a sparrow falls to the ground without God's notice; 
not a life — not even that of the most obscure and 
unnoticed of His creatures — is without its use in con- 
tributing to the advancement of His cause. " Man's 
goings are of the Lord ; how then can a man under- 
stand his own way?" (Prov. 20: 24.) One plan 
rules the world, and everything in the world belongs 
to that plan, as every note in the orchestra is a 
factor in the transport of the audience with which 
the rendering of some master-piece of a great com- 



FROVIDEXCE AXD REDEMPTION. S5 

poser is greeted, or ever}' stroke of the pencil has its 
effect upon the excellence of the work of a great 
painter. As the discords in music only make its 
harmonies the more conspicuous, so sin and death 
subserve the interests of Holiness, and Life, and Love. 
11 We can do nothing against the truth, but for the 
truth." (2 Cor. 13 : S.) 

This implies that, for the attainment of His 
purposes, God is constantly employing second causes. 
It is God's plan to use means for the purpose of 
working out His places. The only answer we can 
give to the question why He does not act directly 
and immediately, is that it is not His will, ordinarily, 
so to work. Every object of Creation is a factor in 
the great world problem. Irrational creatures and 
inanimate Xature have in it their place. So also, 
the higher order of creatures, the angels, created 
above man, but destined to be overtaken and sur- 
passed by man in the development of the new life 
introduced into humanity by Redemption. The 
agency of angels in administering ' ' to the heirs of 
salvation," and thus to the attainment of God's 
purposes with respect to this world, is a doctrine 
most clearly taught, although the extent of this 
administration is not known. That through their 
invisible service; just as through man's visible ser- 
vice, effects are wrought, for the advancement of 
God's Kingdom, upon the external world, as well as 
within the sphere of spiritual influence, is not a 
matter of speculation, but of clear revelation. We 



86 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

see and know only so much of the agencies em- 
ployed by God, as is necessary for our fulfilment of 
the part assigned us. The soldier in an army, 
making a victorious advance, need not know the 
details that are being wrought out by his general, 
with respect to the complicated provisions that must 
be made to move with rapidity and success the 
hundreds of thousands of men whom he commands. 
It is enough for him to be acquainted with the 
recurring duties of every hour, and of every new 
post into which he has been brought through the 
will of his commander, communicated through a 
series of officers that intervene. 

Nor does God's ordinary employment of second 
causes in any way contradict the possibility or fact 
of His occasional immediate activity. God is not 
bound to second causes. They are simply His 
servants. What He does through creatures, He can 
do, just as well and as readily, without creatures. 
Nor does He confine Himself to but one way of 
working through them. He may work through 
them more rapidly or more slowly ; He may accel- 
erate or retard the effects. The production of wine 
at Cana was in itself no more wonderful than what 
God does yearly in the laboratory of the vineyards. 
The miracle consisted in the fact that what is in 
other cases accomplished by. a long process, some of 
whose details men have learned, was then accomp- 
lished very quickly, and without those links through 
which God ordinarily works. He who called 



PROVIDENCE AND REDEMPTION. 87 

creatures out of nothing, and arranged a series of 
second causes through which wine is made from 
water, as it passes through the ground, the roots 
and branches, the buds and blossoms and clusters of 
the vine, the processes of compression, fermentation, 
etc. , could just as readily make wine out of nothing, 
as He made it out of the fruit of the vine. A slight 
variation in the laws of refraction, or the passage of 
the sun's rays through a medium of slightly different 
density, w r ould keep the sun above the horizon, so 
as to partially explain Joshua's lengthened day. 
The water of the river could be made more dense, 
or the iron could be made lighter, in order to bring 
the axe to the surface at the command of the prophet. 
The denial of the reality of the miraculous by those 
who admit the existence of a personal God, is 
stranger than any miracle that has ever been 
wrought. 

When the career of a man upon earth has been 
completed, we can sometimes review the course over 
which he has passed, and trace with distinctness the 
various elements that have contributed to the forma- 
tion of his character and influence. We may even, 
on rare occasions, go further, and, if the period of 
survey be sufficiently distant, we can decide to some 
extent concerning the peculiar office for which God 
raised him up. In the same way, we may study 
different schools and tendencies of religious thought, 
or the development of Christianity, in its varied 
forms, such as the Greek, the Latin, the Germanic. 



88 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

A still wider view will survey the entire history of 
the world, and trace, in its entire extent, the develop- 
ment of a Divine purpose, leading towards an end, 
which, we know from God's Word, is sure to follow. 
It belonged to this plan, that God did not 
immediately execute His sentence of death upon 
man. Instead of personally uniting Himself with 
one of Adam's immediate sons, he left humanity to 
struggle with sin for many generations, sustained by 
the hope of a coming Deliverer, and, in its struggle, 
developing all the capacities of humanity for the 
reception of the promised Salvation. All the crimes 
and vices of a world without God, were overruled 
and utilized in the preparation of Redemption. 
Thus in Heathenism, man was prepared for salva- 
tion, while in Judaism salvation was prepared for 
man. Everything tended towards the dispensation 
of the fulness of the times, Eph. i : 10 ; Gal. 4 : 4. 
There is a vast receptacle to which every year and 
every century and every millenium has poured its 
streams, until the last limit of its capacity is 
reached; all is full and fulfilled. 2 5 This explains 
every critical point in the history of an individual, 
and of a Nation, and of a Church communion and 
of the world. The two main crises in the history 
of the world are those which mark the completion 
of Redemption, and the completion of the applica- 
tion of Redemption. Both the first and the second 
coming of Christ are the Fulness of the Times. All 
this world's history is a history of Redemption. 



PROVIDENCE AND ITS RELATIONS 89 
TO REDEMPTION. 

We may instance the preparation of the Greek 
language, as the instrument through which the 
truths of revelation were to be most fully recorded, 
as a particular example of Providential guidance 
working through men entirely unconscious of the 
process. Each era of its literature contributed new 
elements, until at last when it had become the 
language of the world, the mould was ready in 
which the Divine contents of revelation were cast. 
The New Testament could never have been written 
in the vocabulary of Homer. The great epic poet 
furnished the language for the description of scenes, 
and the vivid recital of events. The tragedians 
developed the Greek language as a vehicle for 
describing deep emotion. The great philosophers, 
Plato and Aristotle, cultivated its adaptation to the 
analysis of human thought, and the purposes of 
generalization and classification . Thus the language 
was ready, when the civilized world was not only 
of one speech, but also was under one government, 
and connected b} T a net- work of great roads, making 
intercourse between distant points frequent and easy. 

A similar preparation for the spread of the 
Reformation might be noted, in the Fall of Con- 
stantinople, the dispersion of learned Greeks into the 
Christian centers of Europe, the consequent revival 
of learning and new attention to classical studies, 
leading inevitably to more close attention to the 
original languages of the Holy Scriptures. With 
this was combined the impulse imparted by geo- 



go ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

graphical extension, as the result of the discovery 
of America, and the new hopes of future progress 
which were inspired. There is no true Philosophy 
of History, except one that is occupied in tracing 
the Hand of God, beneath all human events. Such 
a philosophy we find outlined already in Daniel 
2:31-45, where the Assyrio-Babylonian, Meclo- 
Persian, Macedonian and Roman World Empires 
are described as succumbing before the pow 7 er of the 
world-empire of a diverse kind that was to rise 
from an obscure source and oppose them. 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE ONE PERSON" AND THE TWO NATURES. 



" When the fulness of the time was come, God 
sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under 
the law, to redeem them that were under the law " 
(Gal. 4 : 4, 5). This was the mystery, hidden from 
the begining in God, which was at length revealed 
in Christ (Eph. 3:9). Not in an obscure time and 
place, but at the best known period of the Ancient 
World, and in a land which still retains the pecu- 
liarites of that period, did the Son of God take upon 
Himself man's nature. The geographical and his- 
torical background of those eventful years are 
clearly portrayed on the pages of cotemporary 
writers, who cannot be charged with prejudices in 
favor of Christianity. So well-established are the 
facts that the leading nations of the world make 
them the starting-point for their chronological 
reckoning. Jesus of Nazareth is proved to be the 
Son of God and the promised Messiah, by the ful- 
filment in Him of the prophecies of the Old Testa- 
ment. Such was His own claim, which He asked 
to have tested when He said : ' ' Search " (or " ye 
search ") ' ' the Scriptures ; * * the}' are the}' which 



92 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

testify of Me," John 5 : 39. "To Him, whom they 
slew and hanged on a tree," whom " God raised up 
the third day," "gave all the prophets witness." 
That these prophecies of the Old Testament were 
fulfilled in Him, is the main argument of the New 
Testament. 

Jesus is his personal name, by which he was 
distinguished from other men ; Christ or Messiah is 
his official name. His personal name was one of the 
most common among the Jews. It is the same as 
Joshua ; but as applied to Jesus of Nazareth, it has 
a new significance. Christ, the official name, does 
not properly belong to the Son of God, until he has 
assumed human flesh. In Christ, the divine and 
human are forever and inseparably united. He was 
the Christ, neither in his divine nature alone, nor in 
his human nature alone, but in these two natures 
together, each of them acting according to its pecu- 
liarities in the execution of the Messianic office. 

The incarnation of the Son of God, is the mys- 
tery of all mysteries, above and beyond all thought. 
All that revelation teaches, only removes the diffi- 
culties concerning it further back, but affords no 
explanation. To the last, it remains an article of 
faith, to be believed, but not to be understood. A 
few days before his death, Melanchthon enumerated 
in parallel columns the negative and the positive 
advantages of a departure from this life, and reached 
the culmination of the latter when he wrote : " You 
will learn the w r onderful mystery you could not 



PERSON AND NATURES. 93 

understand in this life, how the two natures in 
Christ are united." 26 But even then, the fact will 
only be the more vividly presented ; mystery upon 
mystery will continue to rise upon us as we con- 
template it. The finite can never contain the 
Infinite. How the Infinite could be personal!}' 
united to the finite, so as to be subject to its limita- 
tions, is the problem our utmost reasonings cannot 
solve. The exaltation of such truths above the 
highest stretch of thought, only proves, instead of 
disproves, that Christianity is the revelation of an 
Infinite God. For what is no higher than finite 
thought, must be of finite origin. In considering 
the incarnation, we must be satisfied with the that ; 
we are not to be concerned about the how. We are 
always to remember that we cannot go beyond what 
God has revealed. 

From this revelation, it is certain that there is in 
Christ but one person. Otherwise there would be no 
incarnation. It was the Eternal Word, who from the 
beginning was with God, and was God, and by whom 
all things were made, who was made flesh and dwelt 
among men. A man speaking with truly human lips 
could say : "I and my Father are one ;" ' ' He that 
hath seen me hath seen the Father. ' ' The arguments 
upon which the proof of the divinity of the Second 
Person of the Trinity depends, are composed largely 
of passages in which a man receives Divine names 
and proclaims his title to Divine honor and glory. 

No new personality, therefore, originated with 



94 



ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 



the conception and birth of Jesus. This distinguishes 
His birth from that of all other men. Their birth 
means the existence of a person that before had no 
existence, or that had potential existence only, 
according to the principle of heredity. But when 
Jesus was born, the Person was that of the Eternal 
Son of God. If it had been otherwise, we would find 
in Jesus of Nazareth, two persons, a Divine from all 
eternity, and a human dating with the beginning of 
his earthly course. As there are not two persons, the 
Person comes entirely from the divine nature. The 
Incarnation occurred by the Son of God taking upon 
Himself a human nature, i. e., by taking upon Him- 
self everything essential to human nature, except 
that which took upon itself the human nature, viz. : 
the inner and determining I. A human nature, it is 
true, cannot exist without personality. But the 
human nature of Christ never was without person- 
ality. Its distinguishing feature, however, was that 
it had no personality of its own. Its personality 
was that of the divine nature, For personalized 
human nature did not first come into existence ; and 
the divine nature then assume it. But the human 
nature came into personalized existence by the very 
act of the Divine Person by which He took human- 
ity into union with Himself. The Son of God did 
not unite Himself with a human person, but with a 
human nature. Christ's humanity is, in all respects, 
the same as ours, except in that, which would carry 
with it the denial of the Son of God having become 



PERSON AND NA TURES. 95 

truly man. 2 ? The Divine Person of Christ was thus 
always that which acted ; the natures, divine and hu- 
man, unchanged, unconf used, indivisible and insepar- 
able, the means through which the Divine Person 
acted. There was no substitution of the one nature 
for a portion of the other; as though, e. g. y the 
divine nature replaced the human spirit or the human 
will. He was "truly God and truly man, of a 
reasonable soul and body ; consubstantial with the 
Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial 
with us according to the Manhood." (Athanasian 
Creed) — The natures were so inseparably united, 
that, to all Eternity, wherever the one nature is, 
there also is the other. While unconf used, they are 
at the same time inseparable. It is not, however, 
any confusion, when it is maintained that the union 
of these two natures is such, that the one acts upon 
and affects the other, and qualities of one nature are 
imparted to the other. Soul and body are not con- 
fused ; and yet the soul, by its presence within the 
body, animates it, i. <?., gives to the body certain of 
the qualities of the soul. The wire is no less truly 
iron, or copper, when charged with an electric cur- 
rent, or aglow w r ith heat. Believing men become, 
in a certain sense, partakers of the divine nature, 
2 Peter 1 : 4. Much more does that human nature, 
in which a Divine Person dwells. The Divine Per- 
son pervades the human nature, which He has 
inseparably united with Himself, and imparts to the 
human nature His attributes ; for the Divine Person 



96 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION, 

can in no way be separated from the divine nature. 
Man always remains man ; but he is to all Eternity 
man endowed with all the power and wisdom and 
glory of God. The attributes of God can be lacking 
in man personally-united with God, only if the 
Divine Person could be conceived of as abandoning 
the humanity which He had assumed. But the 
humanity having no personality but that of the 
divine nature, a break in the personal union, would 
leave humanity without personality ; and ; without 
personality, no human life can exist. The doctrine 
of the impartation of attributes is, therefore, essen- 
tial to that of the personal union. 



CHAPTER XII. 



THE STATE OF HUMILIATION. 



When the Son of God became man, there was 
no abandonment upon His part of His rule over the 
Universe, until the salvation of those whom He had 
chosen would be completed ; the doctrine of the 
Trinity at once forbids us to conceive of two of the 
Persons exercising the prerogatives of God apart 
from the other. He was upholding all things by the 
Word of His power, even while He was the Babe of 
Bethlehem. But, until Redemption was complete, 
the Divine Person, in the administration of His 
Kingdom of Power, did not act ordinarily through 
His human nature. Through the personal union, 
the human nature participated in the divine attri- 
butes, but did not avail itself of them. The Divine 
Person abstained in His human nature from their 
full use. This explains the so-called State of 
Humiliation. God could not, in His own nature, 
be humiliated or "emptied." An infinite nature 
admits of nothing either higher or lower. But by 
assuming a human nuture, the Divine Person may 
be humiliated in that nature. The human nature 
having all the attributes of the divine communicated 



98 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

to it, is humiliated or " emptied," when this nature 
does not fully employ these gifts. Our Lord in His 
humanity could have demanded all the honor and 
glory that belong to God ; for God would have then 
only claimed for Himself His due. But in not 
making this claim, and in not employing, in His 
humanity, these attributes, and in permitting Him- 
self to be accounted no more than any other man, 
and thus submitting to the form of a servant, con- 
sisted His humiliation, Phil. 2 : 5-9. 

This humiliation had its degrees. The word 
"full" is used advisedly, when Christ is said to 
have abstained from the full use of the communi- 
cated attributes. Every miracle which Christ 
wrought was through His use of these attributes. 
When He told of the death of Lazarus, and gave 
directions concerning His triumphal entry and the 
first Lord's Supper, He exercised His Omniscience ; 
but He abstained from its exercise when He declared 
His ignorance of the day and hour of His second 
coming, Mark 13 : 32. When a single word from 
His mouth prostrated the armed men sent to arrest 
Him, John 18 : 6, He exercised His Omnipotence, 
but immediately refraining from its exercise, He 
was arrested and bound. The Humiliation was 
necessary, in order that the price for man's sin 
might be paid. Glimpses of His divine power and 
glory flashed forth from the darkness, in order that, 
even amidst the deepest humiliation, the eye of 
faith might discern what the lips joyfully confessed : 



THE STATE OF HUMILIATION. 99 

11 This is none other than the Son of God." 

The State of Exaltation is the period when the 
Divinely-human Person exercises the divine attri- 
butes through the human, as well as through the 
divine nature ; in other words, when the humanity 
freely uses the communicated divine attributes. It 
may be a question as to whether it be proper to say 
that the humanity always fully exercised them, 
even then ; for there are degrees in Exaltation as in 
Humiliation. There are limitations self-imposed 
upon the humanity of Christ, even subsequent to 
the Resurrection. There is a progress from the 
post-resurrection to the post-ascension period ; and 
even now, although His humanity reign at the 
Right Hand of God, a still higher stage is in pros- 
pect, " when He shall have put down all rule and 
all authority and power," 1 Cor. 15 : 24. 

Such is the doctrine of the Communication of 
Attributes, as explained by the Gospel record of 
our Lord's Humiliation and Exaltation. The Son 
of God was not humiliated by His incarnation ; for 
since the State of Humiliation is over, He remains, 
in the State of Exaltation, incarnate. But 'He was 
humiliated by the mode and conditions, in which 
He became incarnate and lived incarnate. 

The force of the entire doctrine bears upon the 
fact that, in all His official acts as Redeemer, the 
Divine Person acts through both natures. He paid 
the price of man's redemption in His human nature ; 
for the divine nature could not be subject to the 



ioo ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

Law, or suffer and die. His divine imparted to the 
human strength to accomplish all that the Law 
demanded, and to sustain the accumulated guilt of 
the world, (for any merely human nature would 
have sunk under the weight). It gave to His ful- 
filment of the Law infinite merit. Without this 
impartation of divine properties to the human 
nature, Redemption would have been impossible. 
All who hold to the efficacy of the vicarious suffer- 
ings of Christ believe in some mode of Communi- 
cation of Attributes, even when their language 
seems to most decidedly reject it. 28 

With this relation of the two natures made 
clear, we are prepared to consider the various 
stages of Humiliation and Exaltation. The Humili- 
ation began with the conception by the Holy Ghost. 
The Te Deum expresses this correctly in the original, 
and as used in English by the Church of England : 
"When Thou tookest upon Thee to deliver man, 
Thou didst not abhor the Virgin's womb." It was 
a true conception that there occurred ; the body of 
Mary was not simply the channel through which 
a pre-existent humanity descended from Heaven 
and was introduced to earth. Nor was there a new 
creation of humaniry within the womb of Mar3\ 
" God sent forth His Son, made of a woman," 
Gal. 4 : 4. The humanity of Mary was the source 
of Christ's humanity. Otherwise the emphasis laid 
by the evangelists upon the genealogical tables 
would be inexplicable. He was made of the seed 



THE STATE OF HUMILIATION. 101 

of David, according to the flesh, Roman i : 3. The 
miraculous element in our Lord's conception lies in 
the mode in which a separate human life emerges 
from that of the mother. The ordinary course of 
Nature is replaced by a special act of God, not, 
indeed, by creation, but, by a direct divine influence, 
supplying the principle of life lying dormant within 
her, with that impulse and those capacities for 
separate growth that under other circumstances, 
require the agency of man. (See Augsburg Confes- 
sion, Art. III.) 

The Humiliation of Christ is manifest here in 
the fact, that while He might have become incarnate 
in the full glory with which He will return to judg- 
ment, or in the full growth and vigor with which 
Adam was endowed in Eden, He enters the world 
just as other men. He became not simply a feeble 
infant, but, far less than an infant, the Son of God 
was borne about by Mary for the usual period of 
pre-natal existence. Thus He became the Son of 
Mary, just as truly as He became man ; and Mary, 
while not the mother of the divine nature, yet, by 
becoming the mother of the Person inseparably 
united with the humanity derived from her, became 
the mother of God. She could not be the mother 
of the humanit5 T without also being the mother of 
the person ; humanity cannot exist without a per- 
son. The relationship between mother and child is 
one of person to person, and not simply of nature 
to nature. Mary, therefore, as a person, having a 



102 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

relation to Jesus as a person, is truly the mother of 
Jesus. But the person of Jesus is that of the Son 
of God, co-equal and co- eternal God, consubstantial 
with the Father from all eternity. Such was the 
main point which the Church had to assert and 
define against the Nestorians in the Fifth Century, 
as the Council of Chalcedon declared : " Born of 
the Virgin Ma^, the Mother of God ? according to 
the manhood." 

The Holy Scriptures give us no warrant for 
teaching a miraculous birth of Christ except as it 
was the issue of the miraculous conception. The 
miracle lies in the union of divinity with humanity 
within the womb of Mary. When that union is 
formed, it belongs to the Humiliation of Christ, 
that the natural, endowed with supernatural powers, 
should grow according to the limitations of the 
natural. With the attributes imparted to the 
human nature from the first moment of the concep- 
tion, the Lord at any moment, during His pre-natal 
state, could have left His mother and appeared as a 
teacher in Jerusalem, or as a conqueror to His 
down-trodden race. But this would not have been 
consistent with His humiliation. In the State of 
Humiliation, except only on rare occasions, every- 
thing follows the order of natural growth. So in 
all the developments of God's plans in His King- 
dom. The supernatural or miraculous enters 
simply as the beginning of a new development. 
Christ could have come forth from His mother, as 



THE STATE OF HUMILIATION. 103 

He passed through the closed doers after His resur- 
rection ; but to affirm that He did so, fails to dis- 
tinguish between the States of Humiliation and 
Exaltation. Being made ' ' in the likeness of man," 
implies that His birth was a true birth, and not, as 
is the usual doctrine of Mediaeval theologians, the 
mere appearance of a birth. 

It seems scarcely necessary, from a standpoint 
which accepts the divinity of Christ as a matter that 
is raised above all controversy to enter into any 
argument concerning the sinlessness of Christ, dis- 
tinguishing His conception and birth from that of 
all other men. Sin is a personal matter. It does 
not belong to a nature apart from the person. 
Human nature is sinful, only as it is regarded as the 
aggregate of human personalities. But the Person 
of Christ is that of His divine nature. To say that 
a Divine Person sins is a contradiction ; for sin is 
nothing but a want of conformity w T ith the divine 
will. Whatever God wills is the standard of holiness. 
The very fact of incarnation declares the complete 
pervasion and possession of the human nature 
by the divine, so that the human will in Him is even 
more entirely responsive to the divine will, than our 
bodies are to the dictates of our human wills. The 
absence of Original Sin in Him is to be explained, 
not so much by a special sanctification of the nature 
in Mary, as by the fact that the personality in 
Christ is supplied by the divine and not by the 
human nature. The Holy One was the Son of 



104 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

God inhabiting a nature which personally united to 
Himself could not be other than holy. Every 
defect, weakness and perversity of the nature in 
body and soul, descending by heredity from parent 
to child, were removed and more than counter- 
balanced by the indwelling of God. New divine 
powers even then pervaded it by reason of the per- 
sonal union. Christ was not only sinless. He was 
absolutely impeccable. His temptation in no way 
involves the possibility of a fall. We associate 
temptation with peccability, because that is our 
experience. But this is not involved necessarily 
in temptation or trial. Gold is brought to the touch- 
stone to be tested ; but this does not imply that there 
is any possibility of real gold being found to be a 
counterfeit. Temptation only brings to view what 
has hitherto been obscure. The agony of our Lord 
under temptation, did not arise from any apprehen- 
sions on His part of a fall. He knew all the while 
that He would not yield to sin, and the tempter 
would be conquered. The agony is explained by 
the fact that the temptation was part of His Passion. 
The life of Christ progressed on earth. * ' Jesus 
increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with 
God and man," Luke 2:52. The Humiliation 
involving the almost complete abstaining from the 
use of the imparted divine gifts, His humanity 
admitted of and received the same development as 
that of other children. The divine attributes unused, 
He is, in His humanity, a perfect, but at the same 



THE STATE OF HUMILIATION. 105 

time a finite and an undeveloped man. He passed 
through all the stages of human life, exhibiting each 
stage in its highest perfection. It was a growth 
from grace to grace, a part of that obedience by 
which many were made righteous . He was obedient 
to all the demands of the Law, and perfectly fulfilled 
it. He endured all the penalties awaiting the whole 
race for whose salvation He intervened. 

The suffering of Christ began with His birth. 
His parents were poor ; He was born, almost as an 
outcast, among cattle. On the eighth day He shed 
first His blood, in the ordinance of circumcision. 
To avoid Herod, He was carried into Egypt. A 
general massacre of the infants of Bethlehem was 
made, in order that the godless ruler might be sure 
that He had not escaped. The sufferings grew as 
His life advanced. They were only, in small part, 
physical. The heaviest burdens came from the 
ingratitude and rejection of men, the subjection to 
the suggestions and insults of Satan, and the con- 
sciousness of being charged with the accumulated 
guilt of the world, and thus being, for the time, in 
God's sight, the culprit of all culprits the world has 
ever known. The blows, the scourge, the crown of 
thorns, the faded, cast-off cloak, the defilement of 
His cheeks with the spittle of coarse men, the nail- 
ing to the cross, the raging fever that followed with 
its violent thirst, were nothing compared with the pain 
the shouts of " crucify Him," and " not this man, 
but Barrabas," occasioned, and that broke His 



ic6 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

heart while He uttered the cry, "My God, why 
hast Thou forsaken Me ? ' ' * ■ He became obedient 
to death, even the death of the cross," Phil. 2 : 8. 
By the words : " It is finished," John 19 : 30, He 
proclaimed that provision had at last been made for 
every sin, that there was nothing more for Him or 
for any soul whom He redeemed, to pay as a satis- 
faction for sin. The burial is not so much another 
stage in the State of Humiliation, as it is an 
attestation of the reality of His death. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



THE STATE OF EXALTATION. 



The Descent into Hell belongs, not to the State 
of Humiliation, but to that of Exaltation. Acts 2 : 
27, contains no reference to the descent, and, as the 
original shows, does not declare that the soul of 
Christ was actually in Hell. The doctrine rests 
upon 1 Pet. 3 : 18, 19. The contrast there between 
"flesh" and "spirit" is precisely the same as in 
Rom. 1 : 3,4, the one referring to the human, and 
the other to the divine nature. The descent follows 
the quickening, and was therefore one that w r as 
made both in body and in soul. It was an act of 
Christ in His reanimated body. The spirits to 
whom He preached were "in prison." This may 
be understood by the reference to the fallen angels 
in 2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6. The Antedeluvians are especi- 
ally mentioned as types of notorious and flagrant 
transgressors, who reviled Noah when he preached of 
righteousness, just as cotemporaries of Peter' were 
ridiculing the warnings of approaching judgment 
uttered by Christian preachers, 2 Pet. 3:3,4. As 
the preaching of Noah, after many ages, was vindi- 
cated at the Descent of Christ and His preaching to 



io8 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

the spirits in prison, so the Christians of his day 
would in ages to come be vindicated at Christ's 
Second Coming. The underlying thought is : " Be 
patient. The men of to-day may scorn you as 
visionaries, because of your preaching. So Noah 
was despised. But those who despised him were 
terrified to learn, in the eternal world, from the lips 
of the Lord, that all that Noah proclaimed was 
certainly to be fulfilled. ' ' 

There is not the least intimation given in the 
passage concerning any preaching of repentance or 
forgiveness, or any preaching of the Gospel. The 
word used is indeterminate, meaning simply "to 
herald forth," " to proclaim .' ' No other passage 
of Scripture allows us to read this as a preaching 
of the Gospel, i Pet. 4 : 6, sometimes so interpreted, 
refers not to a preaching of the Gospel to the dead 
while dead, but to a former preaching to those now 
dead while they were living ; just as in the preced- 
ing verse, the judging of " the quick and the dead," 
cannot refer to a judging of the dead while dead, 
but looks forward to the Judgment-Day, when those 
who are now dead will be raised, and "the quick 
and the dead " will both be alike alive before God's 
bar. The whole tenor of Scripture being to the 
effect that there will be no place of repentance 
hereafter to those who have despised the preaching 
of the Gospel in this life, we are forced to the con- 
clusion that this passage refers to a triumph of 
Christ over His enemies. Those who object to this, 



THE ST A TE OF EXAL TA TIOX. log 

as though it were derogatory to Christ's character, 
otherwise so mild and tender towards sinners, forget 
that the State of Exaltation marks another treat- 
ment of those persistently impenitent. The same 
Lord who weeps over sinners in the State of Humili- 
ation, will clash them in pieces, like a potter's 
vessel, in the day of His wrath, Ps. 2 : 9. The 
Lamb of God is also the Lion of the tribe of Judah 
Rev. 5:5, and the prayer is recorded of those who 
implore the rocks and mountains to fall upon them, 
and hide them from the wrath of the Lamb, Rev. 
6 : 16. 

In the absence of any revelation concerning it, 
it is a matter of surmise which may be cherished 
as of great probability, that, according to the view 
long current in the Church, the same announcement 
of completed Redemption which struck terror into 
the condemned, was heard also to the joy cf the 
Patriarchs of the Old Testament, who lived in hope 
of the promised Messiah, but had died without the 
sight. If He manifested Himself t-o the one class 
to their terror, would it not be just like what we 
know of Him, while visibly among men, to have 
gladdened the other class with the anticipation of 
their future glory, resting upon the assurance that 
their redemption is now complete? 

The Resurrection was a proof of the completion 
of Redemption so strong and manifest, that, in the 
book of Acts and in the Epistles, it is dwelt upon 
more frequently and emphatically than even His 



no ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

death. " Who was delivered for our offences, and 
was raised again for our justification, ' ' Rom. 4 : 25. 
The Resurrection declared that, although the burden 
of the sins of the world rested upon Christ, they 
were unable to hold Him within the realm of death 
and the grave. He rose above them all. Every 
item of the world's indebtedness was fully paid, and 
there is nothing more that death can claim, either 
of Him or of those who are found in Him. The 
righteousness that avails before God for the believer, 
rises, like a lofty mountain, from the swelling 
flood of the world's sins that rage around it, and 
for many fathoms have hidden it from view. The 
death of Christ brings us comfort only as it is con- 
templated in the light of the Resurrection, and, 
when, with the Apostle, we exclaim : " Who is He 
that condemneth ? It is Christ that died, yea, 
rather that is risen again." 

With the descensus ■', the Resurrection marks the 
beginning of the positive, the active, the aggressive 
side of Christ's work. The State of Humiliation 
marks the passive side. On the Cross, Satan was 
permitted to do his worst. Our Lord submitted 
himself to the power of death, and yielded up His 
spirit. In the Resurrection, the case is reversed. 
Satan's weapons have been exhausted, and Christ 
now turns upon him. A mightier Samson brings 
down with his nod the pillars of the prison within 
which he has been placed, but, unlike Samson, 
rises unharmed from the ruins, while the prisoners 



THE ST A TE OF EXAL TA TION. 1 1 1 

escape. "Through death," because, if there had 
been no death, there would have been no resurrec- 
tion, He destroys "him that had the power of 
death and delivers them who through fear of death 
were all their life time subject to bondage," Heb. 
2 : 14. There is no longer any sting to death ; or 
any victory for the grave. Whenever oppressed by 
the terrors of death, we need only go, with our 
adversary to the empty sepulchre, and say to him : 
" Look there. You have exhausted your power on 
my substitute, and there is no more you can do. 
He is risen and I am free. Christ w r ill use death as 
His slave to bring me to His presence, but except 
as Christ's slave, death has nothing, and can have 
nothing to do with me. Christ has risen, and with 
Him, I have risen to a new life." It is the resistless 
life of God, triumphing over human sin and human 
weakness, that the Resurrection shows, a life which 
goes forth to impart a Resurrection-power to all who 
by faith enter into life- communions with Christ, 
Rom, 6 : 8-1 1. The secret of the aggressive force of 
the Apostolic Church which rendered it unwearied by 
the fatigues, and undeterred by the dangers and 
sacrifices of its missionary enterprises, lay largely 
in the vividness of its conception of the reality of 
the Resurrection. All the Apostolic teaching was 
concentrated in their commission to be witnesses of 
the Resurrection, Acts 1 : 22. The rising of their 
Master from the depth of His humiliation, to attack 
His great enemy, inspired them with courage and 



ii2 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

enthusiasm to wage an active war against him, 
wherever traces of his presence could be found on 
earth. They went forth with no uncertainty as 
to the issue ; for they contended against an oppo- 
nent already overthrown and conquered. They 
knew that within them -dwelt and wrought the very 
life that the grave could not restrain, Rom. 8 : 1 1 ; 
Gal. 2 : 2o, and this rendered those otherwise most 
timid, bold in proclaiming the cause of Christ, and 
advancing His Kingdom, Acts 4: 33. The great- 
est remedy for indifference and lack of courage to 
do and bear for Christ, is "to know the power of 
Christ's Resurrection," Phil. 3 : 10. 

The Resurrection not only makes this argu- 
ment to the believer, but it presents, against the 
doubts of sceptics and the rage of the world, the 
most effectual proof of the Divinity of Christ, Rom. 
1:4. It is the miracle above all other miracles. 
As long as its reality remains undisputed, all doubts 
concerning other miracles are in vain. It contains 
and explains all. Appealing, as Christ did, to this 
miracle, as the test of the truth of His professions, 
even though He were raised, not by His own power, 
John 10: 18, but by divine power, like that with 
which He raised others during His ministry, the 
argument would be overwhelming. God would not 
honor an impostor thus. Its force was felt not only 
by believers, but by unbelievers. It was this argu- 
ment which, in the very city where it occurred, and 
within a few weeks afterwards, overwhelmed the 



THE ST A TE OF EXAL TA TJON. 1 13 

thousands with confusion on the Day of Pentecost. 
The testimonies to this fact that made the Apostles 
aggressive, disheartened and terrified their oppo- 
nents. 

The narrative of the Resurrection shows clearl}^ 
that the State of Exaltation, like that of Humilia- 
tion, had its stages. Even when death is conquered, 
our Lord does not immediately assume the use of 
all the attributes imparted to the human nature. 
He could have come forth from the sealed sepulchre 
as readily as He entered the room where the doors 
were closed, John 20 : 19. The stone w 7 ould have 
been no barrier to a resurrection -body endowed w r ith 
divinity. But for a w r hile some of the limitations 
of the State of Humiliation continue, in order to 
afford the surest proof that the Resurrection was a 
reality, that could be tested by sight and touch. 
There w T as an accommodation of the Lord to those 
w^hom He purposed, by many infallible proofs, to 
convince that the very body that had been crucified, 
and been laid in the grave, had been restored to 
life. The resurrection-body, handled and felt by 
the disciples, 1 John 1:1; John 20 : 27, had new r 
spiritual properties, after w T hich the resurrection- 
bodies of believers are to be fashioned, Phil. 3:21. 
But, beside this, it had also properties ordinarily 
unused, which belonged to it as the abode, in a 
special manner, of the Second Person of the 
Trinity. 

The Ascension was His formal entrance into 



ii 4 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

His invisible glory. His body, still partaking of 
some of the limitations of His Humiliation, was 
localized 2 ^ when He rose from the earth, until a 
cloud received Him out of sight, Acts 1:9. A 
higher stage of Exaltation was reached when ' ' He 
ascended up far above all heavens, that He might 
fill all things, " Eph. 4 : 10. His Ascension is the 
ground of the potential multipresence of His body. 
He can be wherever He wills to be, in body, as well 
as in His human spirit. 3° Whether this be ex- 
plained by its cotemporaneous presence in different 
places at the same time, or by movements so rapid 
that the human mind cannot appreciate them, it is 
not for us to determine. Science which can devise 
instruments that permanently fix upon paper in an 
infinitestimal part of a second, the attitude of a rider 
who is passing before the camera at the rate of less 
than three minutes per mile, 31 should refrain from 
questioning the possibilities of a body in which God 
dwells. The astonishing feats performed, in recent 
years, by the application of electricity in overcoming 
distances, and bringing continents together, should 
start the thought that we may be only at the begin- 
ning of discoveries concerning finite and physical 
things that may lead to yet deeper problems, and 
humble us thoroughly concerning our disbelief as to 
what God is able to do. It is enough for us to 
know that Christ is present in His humanity, as 
as well as in His divinity, wherever He has promised 
to be. The mode in which this can occur we leave, 



THE ST A TE OF EXAL TA TION. 115 

if we be wise, to the divine Omniscience. 

The goal of the Ascension is the Right Hand 
of God. It seems strange that this ever could have 
been conceived of as a determinative locality. The 
imagery of Scripture ought to be plain ; for God is 
a spirit, and is above all localization. As His eye and 
His ear represent His Omniscience, so His Right 
Hand represents His Power and Majesty. The 
Psalms are especially rich in passages speaking of 
the Lord's " Hand." It only requires an examina- 
tion to determine their meaning : Ps. 10 : 12 ; 21 : 
8 ; 28 : 5 ; 31 : 5 ; 31 : 15 ; 32 : 4 ; 37 : 24 ; 38 : 2 ; 
74: 11, etc., etc. Still more expressive is the 
" Right Hand" : Ps. 16 : 1 1 ; 17 : 7 ; 18 : 35 ; 20 : 6 ; 
44 : 3 ; 45 : 4 ; 60 : 5, etc., etc., especially Ps. 118 : 
15, 16. In Ps. 139 : 10, the Right Hand of God 
is expressly said to be Omnipresent. When Christ, 
therefore, is said to sit at the Right Hand of God, 
nothing more is meant than that the human nature 
of Christ shares with the divine, the dominion over 
all things, not simply by possession, but also in use. 
The same thought is expressed by Stephen in Acts 
7 : 56, by " standing at the Right Hand of God," 
with the additional idea of the Lord's attention as 
directed to His struggling people on earth, and of 
the intercession for them which He makes. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



THK OFFICES OF CHRIST. 



The work of Christ for man in his Divinely- 
human-Person, and in the two states in which it has 
existed, is comprised in His three offices of Prophet, 
Priest and King. 

Prophet means a proclaimer, one who speaks 
forth, not simply one who foretells. As Prophet, 
Christ was ' ' the teacher sent from God, ' ' John 3:2, 
to reveal the will of the Father. From the open 
heavens, came the voice : ' ' Hear ye him, ' ' Matt. 
17:5. He was the incarnate Word of God. He 
came to declare that which no mdn couid know or 
tell, except as He would make it known. "The 
only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the 
Father, He hath declared him," John 1 : 18. So 
exclusively is He the teacher of divine things, that 
Peter exclaimed : " Lord, to whom shall we go? 
Thou hast the words of Eternal Life," John 6 : 69. 
If there be not certainty in Christ's words, there is 
certainty nowhere. His teaching was absolutely 
infallible. In vain, men plead the limitations of the 
State of Humiliation, in order to endeavor to prove 
that, with his refraining from the exercise of the com- 



THE OFFICES OF CHRIST. 117 

municated divine knowledge, there was involved the 
possibility of mistakes. The Revealer of God's will 
to man made no mistakes ; otherwise we would have 
no trustworthy revelation, and would, after all, be 
compelled to rest upon mere surmises. No limita- 
tions were submitted to by the God-man, except 
where they were needed for the fulfilment of His 
office. He humbled himself to be obedient to the 
Law, to suffer, to die ; but not to mislead those who 
would trust Him as a Divine Teacher. In this, He 
was illumined with all those riches of Divine Wis- 
dom, which He used and imparted through His 
words. 

In the exercise of this office, He taught the 
Law 7 , freeing it from the Rabbinical corruptions and 
additions, with which it had been encumbered, and 
exhibiting its true spiritual meaning. The Sermon 
on the Mount is a complete exposition of the Ten 
Commandments. But His especial work as Prophet 
was to proclaim the Gospel, i. e.> the promise con- 
cerning the free forgiveness of sins, to be procured 
by His work as Priest. This was a new doctrine, 
differing from that of the Law, not only in degree, 
but in kind. Obscurely indicated in the Old Testa- 
ment, only with Him does the actual plan of God 
for man's salvation become manifest to man. He 
became thus the great expounder of the Old Testa- 
ment prophets, showing how all their predictions, 
which the prophets themselves so little understood 
when they wrote them, were being fulfilled in the 



n8 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

sight of those to whom He preached, Luke 10 : 24. 

His work as a Prophet was not confined to the 
teaching that fell from His own lips. He commis- 
sioned others to proclaim the revelation of God 
which they had heard of Him, authenticating their 
commission with the seal : • ' He that heareth you, 
heareth Me, ' ' Luke 10:16. " They went forth and 
preached everywhere, the Lord working with 
them," Mark 16 : 20, claiming to be " ambassadors 
of Christ, " through whom God plead with men, 
1 Cor. 5 : 20, since they taught, as they baptised, 
not in their own name, but in that of the Holy 
Trinity, Matt. 28 : 19. So to the present day, as the 
message of Christ given to His Apostles is pro- 
claimed by the ministers of the Word, and the 
Church, Christ is still exercising His office as 
Prophet through His servants. They are true to 
their office, only as the voice of Christ sounds forth 
through them without any human adulterations or 
additions, or failure to declare all the counsel of 
God. " If any man speak," whether in the pulpit 
or through the press, ' ' let him speak as the oracles 
of God," 1 Peter 4:11. Such is the distinction, 
made of old, between the immediate and the mediate 
exercise of the Prophetical Office. 

But even in this mediate exercise of the Prophet- 
ical Office, the word of man is attended and pervaded 
by the presence and energizing activity of the Holy 
Spirit ; so that Christ speaks through His ministers, 
not only by their repetition of what was heard from 



THE OFFICES OF CHRIST. 119 

Him, but because the Spirit itself bears His witness 
through the Word spoken. Only man seems to 
speak, but when he speaks what is really the Word 
of God, its convincing power depends upon the 
entire Trinity exercising an influence through the 
Word, far above what the human speaker can ask 
or think. Christ is still the Prophet wherever the 
Gospel is proclaimed. 

All the work of Christ as a Prophet centers 
around His office of Priest. As such, He propitiated 
God by offering a sufficient sacrifice for man's sin, 
and providing a righteousness of infinite merit. 
There are two classes of sacrifices mentioned in 
Holy Scripture, viz., Propitiatory or Expiatory ,and 
Eucharistic. The former render God propitious ; 
the latter are testimonies of thanksgiving. They 
who offer sacrifices are priests. Eucharistic sacri- 
fices are offered by all believers, who, on this 
account, are called spiritual priests, 1 Peter 2:5. 
There is but one propitiatory sacrifice, Christ Him- 
self, the Lamb of God offered for the sins of the 
world. Hence there is but one real priest, Christ 
Himself, the sacrifice and the priest being one and 
the same, Hebrews 4:14; 10 : 10. The priests and 
the sacrifices of the Old Testament were not priests 
and sacrifices in the proper sense. None of their 
offerings propitiated God, but only announced that 
a sacrifice w T as hereafter to be made. They fore- 
shadowed the coming sacrifice, and pointed to 
Christ, Hebrews 10: 1. 



120 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

This sacrifice Christ made by His voluntary 
assumption of all the sufferings demanded by the 
Law, that attended His entire earthly life, from 
Bethlehem to Calvary. All the acts of the State of 
Humiliation were sacrificial. All its sufferings were 
voluntary and cheerful satisfactions offered to God 
for man's sins. 32 They culminate in the death of 
Christ. For this reason, the blood of Christ is often 
mentioned as the price of Redemption, and He is 
said to have borne our sins upon the Cross, although 
these declarations do not exhaust the contents of 
His sufferings. Suffering unto death was the 
penalty w T hich God had decreed against sin. Suf- 
fering and guilt are inseparable. If man was to be 
freed from guilt, some one must bear his sufferings 
for him. If he was to be freed from suffering, some 
one must bear his guilt. Christ took this place. 
He made Himself chargeable with man's guilt and 
sin. He became, so far as the L,aw is concerned, 
the guilty one that man is, in order that man might 
be the Holy One that He is, 2 Cor. 5:21. This is 
the doctrine of the vicarious satisfaction, according 
to which Christ and man are regarded as exchang- 
ing places. " He was wounded for our transgres- 
sions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastise- 
ment of our peace was upon Him, and with His 
stripes we were healed," Isaiah 53 : 5. 

It is true that the sufferings of Christ exhibit 
the love of God towards men, and that thus men are 
moved to repentance ; for ' ' God commendeth His 



THE OFFICES OF CHRIST. 121 

love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, 
Christ died for us," Romans 5:8. It is true that 
the sufferings of Christ encourage us to resist sin 
by the heroic example they afford ; for' ' ' Christ also 
suffered for us, leaving us an example," etc., 1 Peter 
2:21 seq. It is true that His holiness seen in 
almost dazzling light amidst the sorrows that over- 
whelm Him, offers a beginning for that of others 
whose nature He shares. It is true that the awful 
penalty he pays divine justice testifies to the earnest- 
ness of the divine holiness against sin, in that, when 
God's own Son took the sinner's place, the punish- 
ment laid upon Him was so heavy. It is true, that 
no preaching so effectually convicts men of sin, as 
the preaching of the sufferings of Christ, in the 
light of the Resurrection, Acts 2 : 23, 24. But these 
were not the main object of Christ's sufferings, 
which was to be the Lamb of God, to bear the sin 
of the world. 

As eternal death was the punishment decreed 
against sin, so eternal death was suffered by Christ. 
Not a stroke less was inflicted than the Law 
demanded. There was no relaxation or commuta- 
tion of the penalt}^. Justice was to be satisfied, and 
Justice cannot be satisfied with aught less than its 
"eye for eye, and tooth for tooth." Within the 
period within which He suffered, His pains were 
those which all mankind had merited eternally. It 
was eternal death intensively. Its pains were con- 
centrated within the few vears of the Humiliation. 



122 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

The human nature, which suffered was sustained by 
the infinite strength, and endowed with the infinite 
merits of the divine nature ; and thus the price was 
paid for the infinite guilt of the race. 

Christ did more than suffer for man's sin. Suf- 
fering could effect no more than to remove the guilt 
and penalty. Man stands then where Adam stood 
when created. But this is only the foundation of 
his new career. His sins are not onl} r to be forgiven 
and removed ; but there must be positive merit 
present, which he can offer as his title for Heaven 
and its blessedness. Beside paying the penalty for 
sin, Christ, therefore, by His complete obedience to 
every requirement of the Law, earned for man a 
righteousness, which is entitled to eternal rewards. 
Rewards follow obedience, just as certainly as penal- 
ties follow disobedience. But these rewards Christ 
could not receive for Himself, since He is Lord of 
the Law. Not only was He under no obligation to 
obey the Law, but His Divine Person is incapable of 
receiving the merits such obedience brings with it ; 
since the perfection of the Divine cannot be increased. 
Hence all the rewards belong to those who accept 
His Salvation. ' ' He was made unto us righteous- 
ness," i Cor. i : 30. " Christ is the end of the law 
for righteousness, ' ' Romans 10:4. In Christ, 
there is provided the inheritance of all things, 
1 Cor. 4:22. As He has purchased all men, so also 
He has purchased for them all things. It must never 
be forgotten that the righteousness which Christ 



THE OFFICES OF CHRIST. 123 

gives men, is not that which the Divine Person pos- 
sessed from all eternity, but only that which He 
earned for men, during His Humiliation, by His 
perfect compliance with every precept of the Law. 
" Christ offered to His Heavenly Father, for us poor 
sinners, His entire, complete obedience, from His 
holy birth, even unto death " (Formula of Concord, 
p. 581). 

This work of Christ was for all men. None 
were excepted from it. As universal as is man's 
sin, just so universal are the provisions for man's 
redemption. Christ was given for the sins of 
the world, John 3 : 16. He tasted death for 
every man, Heb. 2:9. He died even for those who 
ultimately perish, Rom. 14:15; Heb. 10 : 29. The 
scholastic subtlity that He died sufficiently, but not 
efficaciously for all, has no warrant in Scripture, 
which says absolutely and unrestrictedly l ' He died 
for all," 2 Cor. 5 : 15. 

Just as clear is it, that He died for all the sins 
of all men, 1 John 1:7. There is no limitation of 
the efficacy of His blood to sins committed before 
baptism, or to original sin. Nor is there anywhere 
the remotest reference to any commutation of satis- 
factions which His satisfaction has rendered ; so as 
to bring a penalty, which is utterly beyond man's 
power to pay, within his ability, and that eternal and 
infinite, are thus commuted to temporal and finite 
satisfactions. Christ's satisfaction is entire and com- 
plete. All sins are blotted out, or none are blotted 



124 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

out. Where Christ is rejected, there will be no 
commutation of satisfaction, but even though 
Christ has died for the sinner, he must endure its 
full penalty. Where Christ is accepted, there will 
be no commutation, because man is either altogether 
forgiven all, or he is forgiven none of his guilt. 
Forgiveness is a personal matter, and " there is no 
condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus," 
Romans 8 : i. Where guilt is forgiven, all punish- 
ments are removed. God never punishes the guilt- 
less ; and He never forgives men without regarding 
them, for Christ's sake, as guiltless. Much less has 
He any satisfaction to demand of those who are 
invested with Christ's righteousness, and who thus 
can lay claim to all the rewards of His meritorious 
obedience. 

Since Christ, by His satisfaction, pays the 
penalty which was charged against man, and thus 
provides for his liberation from the guilt and conse- 
quences of sin, this work is called Redemption. In 
some passage of 'Holy Scripture, the term " redemp- 
tion " is applied to the full enjoyment of the fruits 
of this work, as in Luke 21 : 28 ; Romans. 8 : 23 ; 
Eph. 1 : 14 ; 4 : 30. In this sense, Redemption does 
not occur until the return of Christ, and the entrance 
of believers, with body and soul united, into the 
blessings of Eternal Life. Such redemption is not 
universal. But, in the more usual sense, Redemption 
is the act by which the price for man's delivery from 
sin was paid. Such redemption was universal. 



THE OFFICES OF CHRIST. 125 

The price was paid for all. Even those who ulti- 
mately perish were redeemed, Romans 14 : 15. At 
the cost of infinite suffering, the prison was reached, 
the keepers overcome and the doors thrown wide 
open. Those who decline to avail themselves of the 
opportunity cannot be said not to have been re- 
deemed. A vast estate has been purchased, and the 
title freely offered. Those who refuse to accept it 
cannot complain, that they do not enjoy its 
provisions. 

The payment of the satisfaction for sin, is a 
priestly act of Christ that has been completed. 
There is no further offering for sin, either on the 
part of men, or of Christ Himself. The Epistle to 
the Hebrews contrasts the weakness of the Old, 
with the efficacy of the New Testament, from this 
very fact. The Old Testament with its frequent 
sacrifices could not assure the conscience of salva- 
tion. Their constant repetition testified to their 
inadequacy and imperfection. But the efficacy of 
the New, is seen in that Christ "offered one sacrifice 
for sins forever," Heb. 10:12. It is impossible, 
therefore, for Him to be offered anew in the Mass, 
as the Roman Catholic Church teaches. 3 ^ 

There is, however, another priestly act of 
Christ, which is not completed ; but which pertains 
to the present, as well as to the past, viz. , His inter- 
cession for believers with the Father,^ 1 John 2:1; 
Rom. 8 : 34 ; Heb. 7 : 25 ; 9 : 24. This has to do 
with the application, and not with the procural of 



126 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

redemption. It is to be distinguished from the 
intercession made during His State of Humiliation, 
as in John 17 ; Luke 23 : 34. Into the mysteries of 
it, we cannot enter It is enough to be comforted 
by the assurance that in all the trials and dangers of 
life, the real wants of believers are carried by the 
Son of God Himself to the Father. This it was that 
cheered Stephen in his last moments, Acts 7 : 55. 

In considering Christ as a King, it must always 
be kept in mind that the Regal, like the Prophetical 
and Priestly functions, has to do entirely with the 
Mediatorial work. It is that which belongs, there- 
fore, to Christ, as the God-man, and does not com- 
prehend the dominion which pertained to the Second 
Person of the Trinity, before the incarnation. His 
eternal government is one thing ; the participation 
of the human nature in the government of the world 
is another. The first part of Hebrews 1 : 3, refers 
to a rule of Christ not pertaining to His Kingly 
office, which the second part of the same verse 
clearly describes. When the human nature shares 
with the divine in the sphere of Providence, it is 
called the Kingdom of Power. But, as all Provi- 
dence is directed towards the execution of His plans 
of love in the procural and application of Redemp- 
tion, the participation of the human with the divine, 
in this sphere, is called the administration of the 
Kingdom of Grace. When the application of 
Redemption, issues in its full fruition, the Kingdom 
of Grace passes into that of Glory. They are not 



THE OFFICES OF CHRIST. 127 

in reality different kingdoms, but one and the same 
kingdom at different stages. The three offices pei- 
vade one another. 35 His Kingly office enforces His 
teaching and renders efficacious His obedience and 
suffering. 

The Kingly office begins with His incarnation. 
He was born King of the Jews. He received the 
tributes of a king from the Magi. His kingship 
was recognized by Nathanael on His entrance upon 
His ministry, John 1 : 29. It was proclaimed by the 
multitudes on the first Palm Sunday. According to 
the purpose of the Humiliation, He refrained ordi- 
narily from asserting His claims as such, withdraw- 
ing Himself from those who desired to publish His 
kingship, John 6 : 15. But before Pilate, He 
asserted His dignity, John 18 : 37. The superscrip- 
tion over the Cross acknowledged it. But it meant 
far more than even the disciples imagined. His 
kingship over Israel was simply the beginning of 
His Empire. The veil of the temple rent in twain, 
manifested the extension of His Mediatorial king- 
dom over all humanity, in fulfilment of Daniel 7 : 14. 
In the ascension and session at the right hand of 
God, He entered upon the still fuller use of His 
Kingly glory. Raised il far above all principality 
and power and might and dominion, and every 
name that is named, not only in this world, but also 
in that which is to come," He " put all things under 
His feet,*' Eph. 1:21, 22. 

His Kingdom is a spiritual Kingdom, which is 



1 28 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

extended and defended by spiritual means. As John 
18 : 36, declares it is not of this world. Although 
partially in the world, it is not of the world. Its 
conquests are not made by the sword. Men use 
external violence because of their inability to effect 
their purpose by influencing the heart. Christ, by 
His Word reaches the heart and wins it, or dispels 
the plots laid against His Kingdom, as He allayed 
the violence of winds and waves on Lake Gen- 
nesaret. 

It is also a Kingdom, which is progressively 
developed from age to age. We confess this when- 
ever we pray : " Thy Kingdom come.'* The parable 
of the mustard-seed and the leaven confirm it. 
Every century, every generation, every human life, 
is a separate link in the chain. It has its great 
epochs, and between these epochs, periods, each 
with its own peculiarity. Everything looks forward 
towards the end, when all enemies shall be subdued, 
and the triumph be complete, 1 Cor. 15 : 24. The 
subjection of the Son, of course as man, to the 
Father, 1 Cor. 15 : 27, refers to a new mode in 
which the Kingdom will exist and be administered. 



CHAPTER XV. 



the Kingdom of god. 



Christ has ascended and is seated at the Right 
Hand of God. A member of the human race is on 
the Throne of Heaven. All the power of God 
works through exalted humanity to apply to men 
forgiveness and righteousness. Redemption is com- 
pleted, but completed Redemption is to be brought 
to men, and to develop among them its potencies. 
The exercise of the Mediatorial Office, begun on 
earth, is continued in heaven, and, from heaven, 
directs the entire order of things on earth 
according to God's eternal plans of redeeming love 
for the world. The sphere within which, and the 
end for w r hich Christ, as King, exercises His domin- 
ion, is the Kingdom of God,3 6 orthe Kingdom of 
Heaven. His salvation is not applied directly and 
immediately, nor is His work so individualized 
that men become its subjects in isolation. Sin was 
diffused through the activity of one creature of God 
upon another, and all the sins of men are connected 
through the organic unity of the race. Grace 
attains its ends among men in the same way. A 



i 3 o ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

thoroughly organized series of agencies has been 
instituted, for bringing salvation to men. This is 
implied in the very idea of a Kingdom of God. A 
Kingdom means not simply power, not simply 
majesty and glory, but organized power, and ma- 
jesty, and glory ; an adjustment of each member of 
the Kingdom, and a utilization of all its forces, 
towards some predetermined end. The smallest 
hamlet on the most distant border, or amidst the 
seemingly almost inaccessible recesses of the mount- 
ains, and the humblest subject have definitely fixed 
relations, and are connected by a firm, though invisi- 
ble bond, to the throne, or head of the administration 
of His government. 

No earthly kingdom has been organized upon 
a plan so minute and far-reaching, as that of the 
Kingdom of God. Redemption was in prospect in 
all God's dispositions for the world that preceded 
Christ's Coming. Every soul that came into this 
world, after the Fall, came with reference to the 
execution of some part connected with the ultimate 
application of Redemption. The Cross casts its 
shadow forward in the morning, as well as back- 
ward in the evening of this world's history. Every 
event of the old world, if it could be read, was 
a prophecy of Christ's Coming, and a link in the 
chain, whereby God was bringing to fallen men the 
riches of His love. Everything was preparatory to 
the Kingdom of God. 

The centre of all these preparations was in a 






THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 131 

nation, to whom God committed the office of pro- 
claiming His promises, and maintaining the hope of 
the approaching salvation. In order that the idea 
of the Kingdom of God should be preserved from 
corruption and be developed from within by conflicts 
concerning its various earthly relations, that people 
was kept in isolation. The vision of the future 
Kingdom was to make its impress, not only upon 
the lives of individuals, but also upon that of the 
nation. The worldly spirit in the nation constantly 
tended towards an externalizing of the Kingdom. 
Because the Kingdom was to be prepared within 
Israel, it was identified with Israel itself. The dead 
shell was substituted for the living kernel. But the 
very conflict with this externalism developed its 
inner capacities. The distinction between the inner 
and the outer sides of the national life, was, until 
Christ came, only imperfectly understood. With 
His Coming, the struggle between the true and the 
false conceptions of the Kingdom was intensified. 
"The Kingdom of God is at hand," was the cry 
with which the new order of things began. The 
entire history preceding the Coming of Christ is 
only the record of the manner in which the promise 
was kept alive, and agents prepared for the diffusion 
of the Kingdom, whenever it would come. Of the 
greatest character of the Old Testament dispensa- 
tion, w T hose closing days were irradiated with the 
glories of the rising sun, in whose brilliancy he 
rejoiced that his own feeble light would be lost, it 



i 3 2 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

is said that the least in the Kingdom of God would 
be greater, Luke 7 : 28. 

With the coming of Christ came the Kingdom. 
But this was first in great humility and feeble- 
ness. It was like its King, who passed through 
humiliation, before entering glory. It began within 
His chosen ones. Its coming w T as not to them an 
external matter ; but simply an unfolding of what 
they already had, Luke 17: 20, 21. It came in 
power after Christ's Ascension and Sitting at the 
Right Hand of God, The truth had been taught 
which was to be the great means for the extension 
of the Kingdom. The witnesses had been called 
and had received the revelation into minds whose 
memory was hereafter to be supernaturally quick- 
ened and strengthened. When the Holy Spirit 
came all things w T ere brought to their remembrance, 
so that they testified clearly and boldly all that they 
had seen and heard. Through this testimony the 
Holy Spirit wrought. By demonstration of the 
Spirit and of power, it was proved to be not the 
word of man, but the Word of God. It conquered 
hearts. It changed the current of lives. It made 
its enemies its friends and propagators. It made 
the timid disciples brave. It burst the barriers 
of the Jewish nation. It claimed to be, and 
proved, by its ever extending influence, that it was, 
a Gospel for the world. 

Nothing could withstand it. He who sat at 
the Right Hand of God wielded all the power of 



■ 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 133 

Omnipotence to the overthrow of everything that 
attempted to retard its progress. Was it the 
Jewish people ? Their very opposition became the 
greatest argument for its truth. Was it the civil 
government ? Within less than three hundred 
years, it occupied the throne of the Roman Empire. 
Was it learning ? It developed a literature that 
soon cast into the shade all that had preceded. 
All that philosophers and poets had previously 
written that commanded the admiration of men was 
found to be worthless , except as it contributed to 
sustain, the religion that had arisen amidst such 
opposition and detraction. Was it the prejudice of 
the people ? The Gospel of God's Love coming 
directly in contact with every heart brought to it 
the message for which it had been yearning, and 
commended itself to every man's conscience. The 
powers of nature, and the ingenuity of man, were 
enslaved to carry it to the ends of the earth. Back 
of these visible agencies was the activity of the 
unseen ministers to the heirs of the Kingdom, who 
turned aside dangers and infused strength and 
courage whenever they were failing. But a still 
greater source of power, was the presence within 
them of Jesus Himself. The feeblest witness could 
say ; " I live, yet not I, but Christ, the Almighty 
King of Heaven and Earth, liveth in me. He thinks 
in my thought, speaks in my word, and lives and 
acts in everything I do." 

The result was not uninterrupted progress and 



134 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

success. The Kingdom was not at once to fill the 
earth. It was to grow for many centuries amidst 
constant opposition, unfolding still greater glory 
with every conflict. It was to grow in individual 
lives, under the stress of the forces of sin, over which 
it would triumph, until the struggling ones would 
be called to the more immediate presence of their 
L,ord. It was to grow in a long line of witnesses 
upon earth, every trial being only preparatory for 
ultimate bliss, and every battle being only the 
signal for an overwhelming victory. The Kingdom 
of God and the Kingdom of Satan wage a relentless 
war ; but the loss is always Satan's. Even his 
seeming triumphs are employed to more effectually 
confound him. With Christ's death, his power was 
gone, and the weakest believer can successfully 
oppose him. Man becomes strong as he employs 
the Word of his King ; he is weak as he neglects it. 
Every period, every crisis, every detail of this great 
warfare, forms a part of the great plan that has 
always been a present reality in God's sight. All 
is comprehended in the statement that, viewed from 
the standpoint of Redemption, Providence and Grace 
concur. Providence is occupied with the employ- 
ment and administration of means for the application 
of Redemption. " God maketh His sun to rise on 
the evil and the good, andsendeth rain on the just and 
on the unjust," Matt. 5 : 45, because evil and good, 
just and unjust are alike redeemed, and the bless- 
ings of this life are bestowed, in order that, with them, 
the blessings of everlasting life may be offered. 



PART III. 



THE APPLICATION OF 
REDEMPTION. 



135 



CHAPTER XVI. 



THE DISPENSATION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 



The Application of Redemption and progress of 
the Kingdom of God upon earth are dependent upon 
a special presence of the Holy Spirit, characterizing 
the period since Pentecost. When it is said, John 
7 : 39 : " The Holy Ghost was not yet given ; be- 
cause that Jesus was not glorified," and John 16:7: 
"If I go not away, the Comforter will not come 
unto you," there is no denial of the previous 
presence and activity of the Holy Spirit ; it is only 
another form and degree of His activity that are 
indicated. David prayed that the Holy Spirit 
should not be taken from him, Ps. 51: 11, and 
declared that he spake by inspiration of the Spirit, 
1 Sam. 23 : 2. The prophets of the Old Testament 
are directly mentioned as writing under the dictation 
of the Holy Spirit things that they did not under- 
stand, 1 Pet. 1: 11; they "spake as they were 
moved by the Holy Ghost," 1 Pet. 2:21. He had 
descended upon Christ at His baptism, John 1 : 32, 
and all spiritual life that had previously existed 
had been through His working, John 3:5. 

But the presence of the Holy Spirit after Pente- 



138 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

cost contrasted with that which preceded, was like 
the new life that bursts forth on the warm days of 
Spring, contrasted with that w T hich has struggled 
and even feebly grown throughout the Winter, or 
that which luxuriates amidst the tropics, as seen 
after surveying the stunted vegetation of the Arctic 
regions. Even those who had enjoyed the public 
ministry of Christ, and were eye-witnesses of the 
Ascension as of the Crucifixion, were hesitating and 
timid until the prophecy was fulfilled : "Ye shall 
receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come 
upon you," Acts i : 8 ; Cf. Luke 24 : 39. Prior to 
that, they had been dependent upon the visible 
presence of Christ; and felt themselves ignorant 
and helpless when this was removed. They were 
left alone for a brief season, doubtless, in order that 
their sense of dependence upon a higher power 
might be the more deeply realized. Their Master 
had withdrawn into His invisible glory ; and there 
was no record of what He had said and done, except 
that contained in their weak memories, confused, 
as they were, by the multitude of supernatural 
realities which had been unveiled to them in so 
brief a time. 

The presence of the Holy Spirit had been only 
sporadical and occasional before Pentecost. At 
Pentecost, He came to abide forever, John 14 : 16, 
with a power, co- extensive with the Gospel, that is 
to be preached to every creature. Under the Old 
Testament, it had been His office only to impart and 



DISPELS A TION OF THE SPIRIT. 139 

nourish the hope of a future salvation in Christ. 
A vague -and indefinite expectancy of Redemption 
that was in some way to be provided through the 
Messiah, was the summit which the most devout of 
that period attained. Their predictions, when read 
in New Testament light, are found to contain far 
more than they themselves apprehended. They 
knew only imperfectly the force of what they spake 
and wrote, 1 Pet. 1 : 11. Even the saints of the 
Old Testament show more or less of an external 
relation to the Word of God ; their firmest faith and 
most sincere obedience, are attended with much 
doubt and hesitation, and with a fear that greatly 
checked and impaired their love. The Holy 
Spirit came at Pentecost, to apply new truths. 
Under the former dispensation He simply cherished 
the hope ; now He declares and applies the realities 
of fulfilled salvation. He came at Pentecost, to bring 
home to every man what was implied in the message 
of a Saviour who had died, risen and ascended to 
the Right Hand of God for man's sins. He came 
to assure every man that Christ was now seated on 
the throne, and was directing all the power of the 
Universe to bring him where he would reign with 
Christ eternally. The merely external relation of 
believers to God's will was over ; for He now wrote 
God's Law on the hearts of men, Heb. 8 : 10. He 
made of the general message of the Gospel an 
individual one, entering into all the details of human 
history. The new message was no longer confined 



i 4 o ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

to a nation, but was now as wide as the race, and 
as deep as the most remote and obscure experience 
of every heart. 

He came to the disciples, before whom the 
events of the life of Christ had passed, like the 
features of a landscape dimly seen as one is hastily 
carried by it, to enable them to read the record 
latent in their memories, and to interpret the signi- 
ficance of every act. He came to bring about the 
effect of a new revelation by recalling to them the 
words of Christ with infallible accuracy, and making 
these words as they spake and w r rote them, the 
sources of new divine power. The promise was 
fulfilled, that from the life of the believer rivers of 
living water should flow. " But this He spoke of 
the Spirit which they that believed on Him were to 
receive ; for the Spirit was not yet given, because 
Jesus was not yet glorified," John 7 : 38, 39. The 
office of the Spirit is to testify of Christ, John 15 : 26, 
and, with His testimony entering man's heart to 
create an inner source of life, that is ever to unfold 
new powers through all eternity, and to issue forth 
in streams of blessings diffused far and wide. The 
knowledge of a crucified, risen, ascended and reign- 
ing Saviour would soon have vanished from the 
Apostles' minds, and, by its remoteness and exalta- 
tion above all that is earthly would have given them 
no comfort, had it not been forever preserved, 
refreshed and rendered a matter of constant personal 
experience by the presence of the Holy Spirit. 



DISPENSATION OF THE SPIRIT. 14 r 

For thereby they lived in continuous communion 
with their unseen and reigning Master. Assured 
b}^ His witness that they were the sons of God, 
Rom. 8:17, the facts of the spiritual world and the 
powers of the Kingdom of God, were to them 
realities more certain than any to which sense 
testified, and, as they in turn bore witness, John 
16: 27, the Holy Spirit wrought through them, 
Mark 16: 20 ; Acts 1 : 8. Filled with the Holy 
Ghost, they spake as the Spirit gave them utter- 
ance, Acts 2 : 4. With new eyes, they read the 
Old Testament Scriptures, and, the key to its 
its interpretation now 7 given by the Spirit ; they saw 
in old and familiar words the revelation of what 
hitherto eye had not seen, or ear heard, or heart 
conceived, 1 Cor. 2 : 9, 10. Never did the discov- 
erers of w T hat had been long hidden and searched for, 
proclaim what they had found with greater joy. 
Aglow T with the glories of the new revelation, they 
could not but speak the things that they had seen 
and heard, Acts 4 : 20, even though certain death 
w 7 ere the penalt}\ They spake not simply as those 
who had found what the race was yearning to 
know, but as men divinely-commissioned by their 
reigning Master to teach all things that He had 
taught them, and to give to the world, for all time, 
the witness of their experience. Every creature 
was to hear it. Through their w 7 ord the Kingdom 
of God w 7 as to come on earth. Upon the testimony 
of the Apostles the foundation of the Church w r as 



142 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

to be laid, and, by the continuance of this testi- 
mony the Church was to be built. The Redemp- 
tion wrought by Christ is applied to men by the 
Holy Spirit working through the Apostolic Word. 
For this Apostolic Word is not the word of man, 
but of God, "the power of God unto salvation/ ' 
Rom. i : 1 6. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



THK WORD. 



The Spirit gives no new and immediate revela- 
tions. He speaks not of Himself, John 16 : 13. 
The Son of God is for all time the sole Revealer. 
The Spirit is said to reveal only in so far as He 
recalls what Christ had taught and applies its mean- 
ing. He guides into all truth, by receiving from 
Christ, and declaring what He receives, John 16 : 15. 
The entire revelation of God to man to be given in 
this life, was, therefore, complete, when Christ 
spake His parting words to His disciples, as He 
was taken up into Heaven from Olivet. Men had 
heard all that was to be heard, and the words, 
though latent to their consciousness, had been 
indelibly impressed on their minds . God had spoken 
once for all through His Son, Heb. 1:2. 

This Word was communicated to a few men, 
in order through them to be communicated to the 
world. These men were directly divinely called 
and commissioned to witness, to hear and to pro- 
claim the great facts of the life and death of Christ, 
the accomplishment of Redemption and the full 
revelation of God's will that Christ had made. 



144 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

Especially were they to be witnesses of the Resur- 
rection. The truth taught them by Christ and 
brought to their remembrance by the Holy Spirit, 
when proclaimed by them, had all the authority 
and efficacy of what was taught by the voice of 
Christ Himself. It was not their message, but the 
message of Christ, so truly, and really, and directly, 
that He declared : " He that heareth you, heareth 
Me," Luke 10 : 16. The interpretation of the 
words of Christ by the Holy Spirit, was no less the 
Word of Christ. 

This Word was proclaimed first orally. It 
was the oral preaching of the Apostles through 
which the Church was founded. This Word as 
orally transmitted from generation to generation 
would have been equally efficacious. As long as 
an Apostle lived, there was no need that the Word 
should be otherwise than orally transmitted ; for 
the Apostles were infallible witnesses, and their 
presence an effectual guarantee against all omis- 
sions, suppressions and corruptions. 

But the Apostolate, as the office of the divinely- 
commissioned witnesses of the great facts of Redemp- 
tion, could not be filled by a succession. New apostles 
could not be commissioned from those who had not 
been personally associated with Christ while He 
walked and spake among men. The very witness 
of the Apostles depended upon their having been 
with Christ from the beginning, John 16 : 27 ; and 
Paul establishes his claim to the office not only by 



THE WORD. 145 

the fact that he had been immediately called, Gal. 
i : i, but especially that he had seen Jesus Christ, 
our Lord, i Cor. 9: 1. Hence to all time, there 
are but twelve Apostles, Rev. 21:14. As persons, 
the bearers of the office die, but, as Apostles, they 
remain forever ; since they speak to all time through 
the Apostolic Word received from Christ, and 
transmitted to the Church. 

In order, therefore, to be Apostles not simply 
to their own generation, but to all nations and ages 
of the world, they committed their testimony to 
writing. Through their writings, they communi- 
cated to distant lands and centuries not only the 
contents of their message, but the message itself ; 
not only their thoughts, but their very words. 
Nothing of the revelation of Jesus Christ is left to the 
uncertain guardianship of tradition. In all matters 
of importance in temporal things, we demand that 
they be made matters of permanent record, that they 
be committed to writing ; so readily may state- 
ments concerning relatively unimportant things be 
perverted and distorted by lapses of human memorj', 
even w 7 hen there is no motive present for their 
misrepresentation . But nowhere w T ould corruptions 
have been so abundant as in matters of divine 
revelation, not only because they so highly tran- 
scend man's comprehension, but especially because 
of the disturbing element of human sin entering into 
the life of every reporter, and rendering his record 
of revelation certainly imperfect, unless protected, 



146 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

as were the Apostles, by the divine endowment of 
infallibility in what they preached and wrote. 
Thus the oral and the written Word differ, not in 
their material — their testimony is one and the 
same ; but only in the form in which this message is 
clothed. The Holy Scriptures of the New Testa- 
ment are the infallible record of the Apostolic Word. 
They are the official presentations of men who, in 
the exercise of their office as Apostles, or under the 
direction and authority of the Apostles, could not 
go astray, as to the words and works of Christ, and 
to their meaning and application, as developed by 
the Holy Spirit within the first century, under 
various circumstances and relations that were to 
find their repetition in succeeding ages. 

Whether, as they wrote, the Word flowed forth 
in a continual stream from the pen of the sacred 
writers, and without any effort on their part, or 
whether each Gospel and Epistle was the result of 
a process of growth extending through years, in no 
way affects the divine authority of the New Testa- 
ment as, in all its parts, the inspired Word of God. 
As God, by His Providential activity, concurs in 
every act of man, however insignificant, and directs 
every item to the working out of a great plan in 
view from the beginning, so, in the production of 
any part of His infallible record of revelation, He 
could just as certainly influence the writer in put- 
ting to writing a narrative concerning the life of 
Christ, that had grown into a relatively complete 



THE WORD. 147 

form long before, by tlie frequent repetition of its 
details in the assemblies of Christians, or in using 
pre-existing records as the basis of His work, as 
in directly suggesting even' word, while the writer 
wrote in one continuous and rapid movement. It is 
enough that we have as the result, whether reached 
in one way or the other is immaterial, Holy Script- 
ures of the New Testament that are truly the work 
of the Holy Spirit, speaking through inspired men ; 
so that not only in every book, but in every verse 
and word, the two-fold testimony of John 15 : 26, 27, 
is found. ' ' When the Apostles give their human 
testimony to Jesus, the Holy Ghost watches over 
their discourse, guards them from error, purines, 
elevates, strengthens their memory, and imparts 
fitting words ; and while each Apostle speaks in 
his own peculiar way, he is yet wholly imbued 
with the Spirit. Thus we recognize one and the 
same Word to be at the same time both human and 
divine ; appearing as one, we yet acknowledge it to 
be two joined together, and the god-man's two- 
fold nature in one person is mirrored , as a two-fold , 
at once divine and human, witness in one and the 
same Word. All that the Apostles speak is* at the 
same time divine and human." 37 

All that the New Testament claims for the 
Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament, must be 
ascribed in an equal, if not a still higher degree, to 
the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament. The 
teaching of the New Testament, in such passages as 



143 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

Acts 28:25; 2 Peter 1 : 2 1 , is most clear and decided 
to the effect, that the Holy Scriptures of the Old 
Testament are not a merely human, but a Divine 
record of Divine revelation. The fuller gift of the 
Holy Spirit at Pentecost made the human instru- 
mentality only a more complete and perfect medium 
for the communication of what Christ had taught. 

Upon the same principle, the proof of the com- 
pletion of the record of the Divine revelation in 
Christ must be determined. None but the Apostles, 
and those who wrote at their instance or under their 
guidance, were the official witnesses of wdiat Christ 
said and did. Only they and those writing under 
their authority, and w r ith their personal knowledge 
and supervision, could in any way claim to have that 
special presence of the Holy Spirit w^hich rendered 
their testimony infallible. Every book that claims 
to be a New Testament writing must come with the 
authority of one who could say : (i That which we 
have seen and heard declare w r e unto you," 1 John 
1:3; i( We were eye-w 7 itnesses of His Majesty," 
2 Peter 1 : 16 ; " Have I not seen Jesus Christ?" 
1 Cor. 9:1; "I John, saw these things and heard 
them,'' Rev. 22 : 8, viz., the things directly revealed 
to him by the appearing and words of the Son of 
God, Rev. 1 : 1, 17-19. - 

Through the Word, thus written, the Holy 
Spirit is ever active. The writing has simply been 
the guarantee of its purity and permanent preserva- 
tion. Its efficacy would have been equally as great, 



THE WORD. 149 

if it had never been written ; since this depends 
solely upon its being the Word. The power of God 
to apply Redemption without the Word is not denied; 
but we have no promise assuring us of such applica- 
tion. God does not bind Himself, but He binds us 
to His Word. As we will see, in what follows, 
every saving operation of divine grace, which is 
ascribed to the Holy Spirit, is ascribed also to the 
Word. If Regeneration is ascribed in some pas- 
sages to the Holy Spirit, in others it is ascribed to 
the Word ; if Sanctification is ascribed to the Holy 
Spirit, it is ascribed also to the Word. Everything 
that belongs to the one belongs also to the other. 
To those perplexed to know the will of God, the 
Holy Spirit brings the Word, bidding them turn, 
from all search for His presence in other places and 
through other means, to the simple Apostolic testi- 
mony : " The Word is nigh thee, that is, the Word 
of faith which we preach," and there is, therefore, 
no need of searching for Christ in the heights of 
Heaven or the depths of the abyss, Rom. 10 : 6, 8. 
All this Word is found in Holy Scripture. 
There is no revelation of God, except through 
Christ, and all God's revelation in Christ is con- 
tained in Holy Scripture. There is no Word of 
God over and beyond or alongside of that contained 
in Holy Scripture. Even an angel of God who 
proposes to supplement it, must be rejected as an 
emissary of Satan, Gal. 1:8. The Word contained 
in Holy Scripture is not, therefore, only preparatory 



150 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

to a so-called "inner word." Both in the Old 
Testament and the New, men are turned away from 
appeals to imaginary supplementary revelations to 
the simple word contained in Holy Scripture, Isaiah 
8 : 19, 20 ; Luke 16 : 31. If the Holy Spirit speaks 
to us, He does so by applying to us some truth con- 
tained in Scripture ; if the Scriptures are read to or 
by us, the Holy Spirit is applying His truth through 
them, and directly addressing us. 

It is by the inseparable presence of the Spirit, 
that the Word of God is "living and efficacious," 
Heb. 4:12, and the words of Christ are " spirit and 
life/ ' John 6 : 63. It is this, that explains why what 
is spoken by a few weak and despised men, becomes 
the means of convulsing the world, of overthrowing 
deeply-entrenched and firmly-planted error, of 
successfully opposing seemingly resistless violence, 
of changing the appearance of the entire fabric of 
society, of completely revolutionizing human lives. 
The words of Holy Scripture are efficacious, because 
they are the words of Him who sits upon the throne 
of Heaven, and always attends them with His 
Spirit. His Kingdom on earth advances by the 
ever progressive appropriation of the truth con- 
tained in Holy Scripture by His people. It grows 
in individuals, as in every perplexity and affliction, 
they find words of Scripture to direct and console 
them; and in the Church, as, from age to age, it 
more fully appropriates the treasures that are there 
stored up. All true Christian growth, whether it be 



THE WORD. 15 r 

that of individuals or churches, is a growth in the 
apprehension and application and assimilation of 
Scripture. Thus in a certain sense, the Word of 
God may be said to become incarnate in human 
lives. 

It must, however, be always borne in mind, 
that the efficacy belongs to the truth conveyed, and 
not to the words themselves. This truth is just as 
efficacious, if expressed in other words. More 
children of God have been converted and been 
nourished in the divine life by the use of transla- 
tions, than by that of the original texts of Scripture. 
The form of the truth has no effect on its efficacy. 
Wherever the truth is proclaimed, whatever be the 
form, the Kingdom of God advances. The truth 
may be conveyed in a* confessional statement of a 
Church, or in a Catechism, or a hymn, or a sermon, 
or a prayer, or a few sentences that fall in conversa- 
tion from the lips of a Christian man or woman, or 
in a religious book. The Holy Spirit pours the 
material of Scripture into numberless moulds, with- 
out in any way diminishing its value. The w r ater 
of life, drawn into the most worthless earthen vessel, 
is just as quickening and invigorating, as when it 
issues immediately from the throne of God. The 
work of the minister in preaching the Gospel is, 
from the fulness of his Christian experience, to 
adapt the material of the Holy Scripture to the 
peculiar w T ants of Christian people, as they vary 
from time to time, and place to place. His sole 



152 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

effort must be in changing the form, in no way to 
change the material. His ministry is efficacious 
only as he preaches all the counsel of God, without 
weakening it by any human admixtures. For it is 
only the Word of God, through which the Spirit 
works, and in the use of which he is sure of God's 
blessing, Isaiah 55 : 1 1. All his work as a minister 
is done, when, like John the Baptist, he bears wit- 
ness of the Light, John 1:6. 

But the truth may be confessed and taught, not 
only in words, but also in works. A man's life may 
teach the Word far more extensively or even inten- 
sively, than his voice or pen. There are epistles, 
read of all men, ci written not with ink, but wdth 
the Spirit of the Living God ; not in tables of stone, 
but in fleshy tables of the heart, " 2 Cor. 3:3. The 
life may either give a general impression of fidelity 
to Christ, or may stand for the confession of some 
particular doctrine or duty. Thus the name of 
Athanasius is forever associated with the doctrine 
of the Trinity, and of Augustine with the doctrines 
of sin and grace, and of Luther with that of justi- 
fication by faith ; while those of Schwartz, Ziegen- 
balg and Heyer are connected with the duty of 
evangelizing the world, and those of Howard and 
Fliedner and Florence Nightingale and Passavant 
recall various forms of benevolent activity. The 
martyrs have sealed with their blood their testimony 
to the truth of Christianity, and the reality of a liv- 
ing communion between Christ and His people on 



THE WORD. 153 

earth. Thus " being dead, they yet speak.' ' A 
holy personality, i. e. s a man or woman sanctified by 
God's Spirit and living God's Word, diffuses an in- 
fluence far and wide, and leaves a memory which 
may refresh and encourage remote generations. A 
retired Christian mother ma}' thus exert more perma- 
nent influence than men whose names are on the 
tongues of thousands. Christian biography furnishes 
material for illustrating the Bible beyond all com- 
mentaries. A supernatural power attends the con- 
fession and living of the truth. The Spirit is just 
as active in the truth thus taught, as when read or 
preached. A truly spiritual man attracts to himself 
spiritually minded men, reproves by his very 
presence the thought of sin, checks despondency and 
gloom wherever found, and leads by his own zeal 
the more feeble onward, where their indifference had 
hitherto been lingering and hesitating. The same 
enmity that the world feels towards the Word, will 
necessarily come also to those who stand as the 
representatives of that Word. 

Nevertheless the Word of God in the mouth of 
a godless man is not inefficacious. Just to the degree 
that the Word is preached, is the Spirit active. 
When the Word is preached by the godless, the 
testimony is conflicting. Proclaimed in one breath, 
it is denied with the other, and is not a pure confes- 
sion of the truth. The life which contradicts the 
truth causes the effect to be the same, as though a 
portion of the truth had been withheld. But the 



154 EL E ME NTS OF REL IGION. 

promises of God are none the less sure, because a 
godless man offers them. The commands of God 
are none the less binding, because a godless man 
proclaims them. The warnings of God are none 
the less sure, because a godless man communicates 
them. Were the efficacy of the Word dependent on 
the character of the minister, we could rarely be 
certain that a blessing attends the Word. It is the 
water of life which brings refreshment, whether 
received from a golden cup or an earthen bowl. 

Nor even does the efficacy of the Word depend 
upon man's faith. Faith is always necessary to the 
reception of the efficacy, but not to its presence. 
There is no lack of efficacy in the medicine which is 
not taken by the patient. If his symptoms grow 
w T orse, he could not tell his physician that there was 
no efficac}^ in the prescription. All the while that 
the wheat was covered by the cerements of the mum- 
my with which it was buried, its efficacy was not 
lost. Thousands of years elapsed, and when placed 
in relations favorable to its development, it was 
proved to have been present. If it had died after a 
thousand }^ears, and never been placed where it 
could sprout, this would not have proved any lack 
of efficacy during that millenium. It is not ground 
and moisture and sunlight, that give the seed its 
vitality and efficacy. We find these in an inner 
principle, which, however, requires for its exercise 
such external conditions. So the efficacy of the 
Word depends upon the abiding presence of the 



THE WORD. 155 

Spirit within it, as a life-force, which, however, is 
not operative in the application of redemption and 
the salvation of men, unless it secure lodgment in 
man's heart, and be cherished there. The figure is 
one which Holy Scripture itself uses in familiar 
passages. 

But in one respect, the figure does not apply. 
The efficac}' of the Word, unlike that of the seed, 
always has a result. The man to whom the Word of 
God comes, and who repels it, is not as he was before. 
Where long and persistently refused, hardening at 
last comes, Ex. 8:15; 9:12; John 12 : 40 ; Heb. 
4:1, and the Word becomes ' ' a savor of death unto 
death," 2 Cor. 2:16. Every word heard or read, 
every privilege and opportunity enjoyed, leaves its 
impress either for good or for evil. It is not so 
properly the Word, as man's abuse of the Word; 
not so much the efficacy of the Word, as the sin 
taking occasion of the efficacy that produces this 
result, Romans 7:8. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



LAW AND GOSPKlv. 



Even when the Word is not repelled, but 
received, it has a two-fold efficacy, corresponding 
to the two forms of doctrine which it contains. It 
proclaims both Law and Gospel. The Law is the 
declaration of the divine will concerning what man 
should be, should do and should omit to do. The 
Gospel is the promise of the gratuitous forgiveness 
of sins for Christ's sake. All the Law is summed 
up in the First Commandment, requiring that God 
should be feared, and loved, and served above all 
things, and extending its demands over man's 
entire life and into all its details. Attached to the 
Law, is its threatening of all its penalties for even 
the smallest defect in obedience, Gal. 3 : 10, an 
offence in but one point being regarded a dis- 
obedience of the whole Law, James 2 : 10, " just as 
he who steps over one paling gets over the whole 
fence. "38 

Forcible as are the declarations and demands of 
the Law in the Old Testament, they acquired a new 
significance in the New Testament. The Law as 
taught in the New Testament, mitigates nothing 



LA W AND GOSPEL. 157 

that is contained in the Old Testament. Christ is 
not a new lawgiver, offering a new law, which is to 
give salvation upon easier terms than upon those 
proposed by Moses. 3 ^ His teaching only showed 
the demands of the Law had a wider range than 
had been previously thought. On the one hand, 
the Ceremonial Law was fulfilled and abolished in 
Christ; on the other hand, in His repetition of the 
Law in the Sermon on the Mount, He removed 
from it the many Rabbinical additions and inter- 
pretations with which it had been obscured. But 
with these external demands abolished, the spiritu- 
ality of the Law is seen as never before. Judaism 
had been almost entirely a system of pure extern- 
alities. The unity of the Law had been lost sight 
of. It was disintegrated into numerous isolated 
precepts, parallel with one another, or which even 
under circumstances conflicted with one another. 
All stress was laid upon the outward life, the 
external duties of morality and the external rites 
of worship. But Christ taught that the essential 
thing in keeping the Commandments consisted 
in the attitude of heart and mind to the Com- 
mandments, Matt. 5 : 22, 28. Keeping the Com- 
mandments was not so much a matter of the 
performance of duties, as it was a matter of love, 
Matt. 22 : 37-40. The sum of all duties to God 
was to love God ; the sum of all duties to man was 
to love man. But the demands of the Law as 
repeated by Him who came to bring the Gospel, 



158 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION, 

were even more exacting. It was not simply a 
demand to love God, but to love God with all the 
heart. It was not simply a demand to love one's 
neighbor, but by one's neighbor He taught that 
every man one met was meant, and then the meas- 
ure of this love was stated as being nothing less 
than the love of self. All this had been in the 
Mosaic Law, but had been forgotten, if it had ever 
been more than superficially apprehended, except 
by a very few of the more devout in Israel. 

In the completeness of Christ's obedience and the 
sinless perfection of His character, the holiness 
of the Law was seen in the living example, 
and the contrast w T as evoked between it and the 
sinfulness of men. Nowhere is the wrath of God 
against sin so forcibly proclaimed as in the suffer- 
ings and death of Christ. When the Son of God 
takes the place of sinful man, the greatness of man's 
guilt can be seen in the infinite pain inflicted on 
man's sinless substitute. Sin is shown to be no 
light and relatively indifferent matter. There is no 
argument like this, to present the vastness and 
depths of the Law's demands. 4° 

The deeper meaning thus given the Law by 
Christ's teaching and suffering, is pressed upon 
man in the New Testament by the Holy Spirit. 
Searching the deep things of Christ, He unfolds 
more and more of the Law's demands, exalts its 
standard, and displays God's wrath. 

The efficacy of the Law is thus throughout 



LAW AND GOSPEL . 159 

terrifying. It knows of no mercy. Its one word is 
justice, and since justice has been violated its con- 
stant declaration is one of wrath. "Tribulation 
and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth 
evil," Rom. 2:9. It humbles and crushes man, 
and, unless attained, or followed by the Gospel, 
drives man to despair. For man's ruin far sur- 
passes all his efforts for self-recover}-. " The Law 
worketh wrath, " Rom. 4: 15, and "by the Law is 
the knowledge of sin," Rom. 3 : 20. 

While the Law T and the Gospel must, there- 
fore, be carefully distinguished, as two portions of 
the one Word of God, they are not contradictory. 
The one is only preparatory to the other. Every 
one who inherits everlasting life does so through 
the fulfilment of the Law. Unable to fulfil the 
Law himself, Christ has become to him the end of 
the Law for righteousness, Rom. 10 : 4. Law and 
Gospel concur, the Law 7 being the servant to bring 
men to Christ, i. e., to lead to the Gospel. All the 
terrors of the Law have, therefore, beneath them 
purposes of mercy. They are intended to expel 
from man all self-confidence, and to lead him to 
despair utterly of himself, in order that in his help- 
lessness he may be ready to accept Christ, as He 
comes to him in the Gospel with the assurance of 
completed Redemption. The Gospel is the entire 
narrative of what Christ has done and suffered, 
of what He is and has and w 7 ill be for sinful men. 
"Everything that comforts, that offers the favor 



i6o ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

and grace of God to transgressors of the Law, is 
and is properly said to be the Gospel, a good and 
joyful message, that God does not will to punish 
sins, but, for Christ's sake to forgive them." 
(Formula of Concord, p. 593.) All this is con- 
densed in Melanchthon's admirable definition in the 
Apology : ' ' The gratuitous promise of the remission 
of sins for Christ's sake" (p. 115). The effect of 
the Gospel is, therefore, only peace and joy and 
life.- Assured by it that, even in this life, he has 
the favor of God, and that God's thoughts towards 
him are only those of love, all sorrow and sadness 
are banished from man's heart, except as he recalls 
his sins, and the voice of the Law is heard condemn- 
ing them. With the consciousness of God's favor, 
a new power enters the life and renews it. These 
effects of the Gospel will be more fully described in 
what follows concerning the acts of the applying 
grace of the Holy Spirit. 



CHx\PTER XIX. 



WORD AXD SACRAMENTS. 



Thus the Holy Spirit works only through the 
Word. But the Word of the Gospel comes to man 
in two different modes. It comes in the testimony 
of the Apostolic witnesses, recorded in Holy Scrip- 
ture, and preserved and applied by the Church in 
that corresponding testimony which, to the end of 
time, she gives under the impulse and guidance of 
the Holy Spirit. It comes also through ordinances 
which Christ instituted, and the Holy Spirit uses, as 
memorials and seals of completed Redemption, and, 
by being such memorials and seals, as real means, 
by which Redemption is applied. These two modes 
are usually known as the preaching of the Word, 
and the administration of the Sacraments. Instead 
of the Word and Sacraments being regarded either 
as co-ordinate, or the one as subordinate to the 
other, they are in fact incapable of comparison or 
contrast. In the two objects, we have the one 
Word applied in two different ways. This the earl} r 
Church expressed by the distinction between the 
"audible Word," or word, as read and preached, 



162 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

and the " visible Word,'' or word as applied in the 
Sacraments. 

There is no efficacy or value in a sacrament, 
except as it is an organ for applying the Word. 
Luther says of Baptism most forcibly: "If the 
Word be taken away, the water is the same as that 
with which the seivant cooks ;" and he solves the 
controversy concerning the Lord's Supper, by declar- 
ing that his opponents "regard the Sacraments as 
something that we do without the Word of God." 41 
There is no Sacrament except as the Word of God is 
applied to man with an external element. The 
Word without the element is no more of a Sacrament, 
than the element without the Word. '■ The Word 
comes to the element, and there is a Sacrament. ' ' 42 A 
Sacrament is a divinely-instituted action in which 
the general promise of the Gospel concerning the 
gratuitous forgiveness of sins is applied to the indi- 
vidual in the reception of earthly elements, which 
are offered as pledges of invisible spiritual blessings, 
that are there present and actually conveyed. 43 

The Word outside of and the Word within the 
Sacrament, are equally precious and efficacious. Nor 
can any contrast be made concerning different forms 
of efficacy, as though the Word without an element 
had a different effect to accomplish within the econo- 
my of grace from the Word when joined with the 
element. 44 

The difference is altogether in the mode in 
which the Word is applied. As recorded in Holy 



WORD AND SACRAMENTS. 163 

Scripture and heard in public preaching, it is general, 
declaring that the mercy of God is as wide as the 
sorrow caused by sin, and that the Redemption 
wrought by Christ is for all men. Even the promises 
made to the penitent and believing reach individuals, 
only as through the work of the Holy Spirit, they 
are led to infer that what belongs to an entire class 
belongs to every individual of the class, and that 
what is intended for the human race belongs to 
every man. 

In both of the Sacraments, on the other hand, 
the Word reaches each individual, not by inference 
from a general promise, but directly and specifically. 
Every one baptized has the assurance by the words 
of promise of Baptism that are applied to him with 
the water, that God is seeking his salvation, that he 
is included in the covenant of God's love, and that 
he can perish eternally only by rejecting God's 
offers of salvation, and repelling the influences of 
God's grace. Baptism makes of the general 
promise of God s grace an individual matter. Every 
drop of water proclaims that God loves not only the 
world , but that He loves the particular child baptized, 
and that to this child every promise recorded in the 
Gospel most certainly belongs. He need not seek 
the assurance of his salvation in any secret decree 
of God ; for he has, for all his life, the record in his 
baptism, that all the blessings of the Kingdom of 
Heaven have been provided for him, and that they 
cannot be lost, except by his own rejection and 



1 64 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

renunciation of this unspeakable gift. 

In the Holy Supper, the relation is precisely the 
same. As the Small Catechism so well declares, 
the chief things in the Sacrament are the words, that 
accompany the bodily eating and drinking, viz., the 
words : * ' Given and shed for you for the remission 
of sins. ' ' Even the presence of the Body and Blood 
of Christ is entirely subordinate to these words of 
the Lord's Supper. These heavenly gifts only seal 
the promise of the Gospel. 

When I receive the Body and Blood of Christ 
with the bread and wine, I have in this the most in- 
dubitable proof that Christ not only tasted of death 
for every man, but that His sacrifice pertained to 
me as truly as though there had been no one else 
but me who needed redemption. The general 
promise of the Gospel is individualized with every 
giving of the bread and every giving of the w T ine to 
a communicant; as the words attend it : " Take, eat ; 
this is the Body of Jesus Christ, given for thee. 
Take and drink ; this is the Blood of Jesus Christ, 
shed for thy sins. ' ' Thus there is offered to faith its 
surest support ; since it is the office of faith to 
change the plural pronouns of the Gospel into the 
singular number. Instead of saying God loved the 
world, it says with Paul: " Christ loved me, and 
gave Himself for me /" and instead of " Christ died 
for all men," ' * Christ died for me ;" and instead of 
' ' our Lord, ' ' with Thomas : ' ' My Lord and my God. ' ' 
i( Christ causes the promise of the Gospel to be 



WORD AND SACRAMENTS. 165 

offered, not only ingeneral y but, through the Sacra- 
ments, which He attaches, as the seals of the 
promise, He seals and thereby especially confirms 
the certainty of the Gospel promise to eveiy one 
believing 1 ' (itnicuique credenti)^ 

Closely connected with this individualizing or 
specializing of the Gospel, is the condensation of the 
Gospel in the Sacrament. The Word as read or 
preached, presents successively different aspects of 
the truth. The one truth is divided into its several 
parts, as the prism resolves trie white light into its 
constituent colors. The Sacraments, however, bring 
to the individual the condensed Gospel. It is the 
whole Word of God's grace that is there applied.* 6 
There is a distinction in the degree of explicitness 
with which this is done, between Baptism and the 
Lord's Supper. Baptism contains all that is found 
in the Lord's Supper, although only in the germ. 
It is based upon the proclamation of the message of 
complete redemption, deriving its authority from the 
direct commission of our Lord, after His satisfaction 
for sin had been rendered, and, as He was about to 
ascend to the Father. It is, thus, the seal of the 
entire manifestation of Christ, bringing the person 
of the baptized into the full fellowship of all that 
Christ was, in all His offices and, acts, and words, 
from His conception by the Holy Ghost, to His sit- 
ting at the Right Hand of God. 

The Lord's Supper lays its chief emphasis upon 
the doctrinal presentation of the contents of the 



i66 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

Gospel. It is pre-eminently a memorial of the com- 
pletion and application of Redemption. The 
error of Zwinglianism is that it makes it a memorial 
of the mode, instead of the fact of Redemption. 
The doctrine of the Real Presence of the Body and 
Blood of Christ, is what gives the memorial all its 
force. 47 We need only reflect upon what is compre- 
hended in the assurance that, in the Lord's Supper, 
the Body and Blood of Christ are actually present 
with the bread and wine, and are there distributed 
to all communicants. We need only consider how 
the Real Presence seals the words that each com- 
municant hears, as he receives the Sacrament. 
Surely nowhere is the fact of the sin of the communi- 
cant and his need of Redemption more forcibly 
brought to his attention. Beyond the necessity of 
redemption, it not merely offers the hope that 
Redemption will be provided; but it declares that such 
Redemption has been fully made. To remove all 
doubt, the very Body and Blood, through which 
Redemption has been effected, are offered. It pro- 
claims the natures of the Redeemer. He is human ; 
for He has body and blood. He is divine ; for the 
Body and Blood are present and communicated in a 
mode transcending both sense and reason. None 
but a body endowed with divine properties could be 
imparted on the same day to hundreds of thousands 
of communicants in diverse parts of the world. 
But above all, it is the pledge of the application of 
Redemption. No one to whom the words of distri- 



WORD AND SACRAMENTS. 167 

bution are applied, if he believe God's assurance, 
can doubt that Christ died for him, and that the 
Holy Spirit urges him to accept the benefits of 
Christ's death. It is not the mystery of the 
presence of Christ's Body (for the Omnipresence of 
God, so that all God is at every point of space con- 
tains an equal mystery) that has been the obstacle to 
the reception of the doctrine of the Real Presence 
among a considerable portion of Protestants ; but 
the main difficulty has arisen from the fact that, in 
the distribution, in the Lord's Supper, a pastor who 
holds that Christ died only for the elect cannot say 
to every communicant : ' ' This is the Body of Christ 
given for thee. ' ' The objective efficacy of the Sacra- 
ment is denied, because the objective efficacy of the 
Word is denied ; and the efficacy denied both Word 
and Sacrament is, according to this theory, found 
only in man's faith, which is the fruit of God's 
election. The entire plan of salvation, from its 
beginning in God's eternal counsel to its consumma- 
tion in everlasting life, is thus comprehended and 
declared in the Holy Supper. It is a concentration 
of the Gospel of Redemption. 

The Word, thus individualized and concentra- 
ted, is sealed by an earthly element. The element 
gives weak faith (for perfect faith does not need it) 
the aid and support of a corporeal contact with the 
Word. As it is a support to faith for the eyes to see, 
and the ears to hear some outw 7 ard visible or audible 
confirmation of the Word, so with the elements in 



■i 68 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

the Sacrament. The ring assures the bride of the 
love of her betrothed which has been pledged again 
and again with his word. The kiss consoles the 
child w T ho has yearned for a mother's forgiveness far 
more than do the mere sentences that fall from her 
lips ; but the ring and the kiss without the w T ord 
would be nothing. Their value lies in that they 
apply and bear strongest testimony to the value of 
the w 7 ord. 

The value of the spoken Word lies in its ability 
to impart a meaning to the mind of the one who 
hears it. It becomes, therefore, a question that 
naturally presses for attention, whether the Word, 
in the Sacraments exercises its efficacy, only when 
this Word is apprehended by the mind of the recipi- 
ent. Without doubt, the ultimate end is not reached, 
until the Word, thus uttered, unfolds its meaning to 
the intelligence. The Holy Spirit sanctifies, through 
the truth, as that truth is taught and learned. The 
efficacy of Baptism is not confined to the moment of 
its administration ; but it continues to follow the 
baptized person throughout his entire life, as the 
meaning of the Word, applied in Baptism, and the 
covenant which God there makes, are more and 
more unfolded. The remembrance of Baptism is a 
perennial stream of divine grace, because the Word 
applied in Baptism was not temporary and transient ; 
but perpetual and eternal. It is not the remem- 
brance of the water that there touched the brow, or 
the hand of the Church, laid by the minister upon 



WORD AND SACRAMENTS. 169 

our heads, but of the Word and Covenant of God, 
that continues to flow, like a stream of living water, 
throughout our lives. Its abiding testimony is : 
"For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be 
removed ; but My kindness shall not depart from 
thee, neither shall the covenant of My peace be 
removed, saith the Lord that hath mere}' on thee," 
Isaiah 54 : 10. For this reason St. Peter writes to 
the scattered Christians : " Baptism is now saving 
you;" for the influence of the Word that began 
when the Sacrament was received, continues to 
work within them, as, by the power of the Hoi}' 
Spirit, the Word of Baptism is laid to heart, 1 Peter 

3 = 21. 

The growth in the apprehension of the meaning 
of Baptism, as the condition of growth in the appro- 
priation of the blessings of Baptism, implies that 
in the beginning there was only a feeble appre- 
hension, when contrasted with what was to follow. 
The analogy of the knowledge of Christ's teaching 
possessed by the Apostles before the Comforter was 
given to bring all things to their remembrance, may 
be recalled. Our constant experience testifies to 
the influence from the mere presence of men, whose 
personality leaves an impression upon us, which 
is expressed only in words when we begin to analyze 
it. So the presence of the Holy Spirit may influ- 
ence or produce a temper or disposition of heart 
and mind, apart from the apprehension of the per- 
son influenced, as to the mode in which that effect 



170 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

is produced. If, then, the testimony is clear as to 
these three things : first, the capacity of children 
for faith, secondly, their right to Baptism, and, 
thirdly, Baptism as a means of regeneration, all 
difficulties connected with their lack of apprehen- 
sion of what the Word connected w T ith the water 
means, should not deter us from believing that 
God has His modes of dealing with them, that 
are beyond our thought. Faith is a disposition of 
heart towards God. It is not so much a relation 
between man and a certain number of truths, 
as it is a relation of person to person, of man to 
God, and to the truths, only as, in the truths, God is 
found. The Holy Spirit may, therefore, as it pleases 
Him, first work the disposition, or temper, or habit, 
and afterwards bring the child to the intellectual 
apprehension of what was there involved. At the 
time of the Reformation, it was the office of the 
Lutheran Church to maintain against the Medi- 
evalists that faith was properly not an intellectual 
matter, but was man's trust in God/ 8 The influence 
of divine grace, therefore, begins in the affections 
and wills of baptized children, upon which the 
Word of Baptism is to work with their developing 
intelligence, as they are gradually led into the 
significance of the truths of which Baptism is the 
pledge. It would be contrary to the entire tenor of 
Holy Scripture for us to attribute to Baptism any 
efficacy, except as it is intended to reach man by 
changing heart and will. There is no blessing im- 



WORD AXD SACRAMENTS. 171 

parted sine bono mofu utentis. Even in adults, the 
intellectual side of faith is only preparatory to con- 
fidence, as that which really makes faith faith. But 
that such confidence be wrought, there is no need of 
first mastering an entire system of dogmatic the- 
ology, or committing the Catechism, or reading the 
New Testament, or being able to comprehend a 
sermon. A single sentence may teach all. The 
Holy Spirit works such confidence through His own 
appointed means, even before a single sentence may 
be known or be comprehensible. But when thus 
wrought, it is only the feeblest germ of that divine 
life, that is eternally to unfold its capacities, as it 
progresses in the knowledge of God. 

The Holy Supper, however, is only for those 
who examine themselves, 1 Cor. 11: 28. This 
clearly indicates intellectual maturity, and ability to 
comprehend the standard according to which the 
examination is to be made, viz., the Word of both 
Law and Gospel. A relation between the benefit 
received and the examination is indicated, since the 
examination, by its disclosure of sin, leads the com- 
municant to the higher realization of the blessings 
of the Gospel. We know of no blessing imparted 
through the Real Presence, except the assurance it 
gives of completed Redemption. Xo presence is 
taught, except in the very moment, when, with the 
words of distribution, the elements are received. 
There is no presence taught in Holy Scripture, of 
the Bod}- and Blood upon the altar, before or after 



172 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

distribution, or in the bodies of communicants, even 
the fraction of a second after the distribution. The 
permanent object of the Lord's Supper is the Word 
of forgiveness. This Word follows the communicant, 
as the bodily presence is removed, and the Holy 
Spirit continues to impart through it strength for 
many days. What God may do farther through 
the Lord's Supper we know not. It is unsafe to 
deny absolutety any suggestions that may arise as 
to the possibilities of His workings. But it is safe 
to state what Holy Scripture teaches, and on what 
it is utterly silent ; what, if held, comes with 
divine authority, and what is a matter of purely 
human conjecture. We know that Christ is bodily 
present when, through His minister, He says: 
' ' Take eat ; this is My body ; ' ' but we do not know 
of such presence a moment before or afterward. 
There are but two ordinances in which the 
Gospel promise is thus individualized, concentrated 
and accompanied by a visible pledge in the use of 
elements. Circumcision and the Passover in the 
Old Testament prophesied and foreshadowed the 
sacraments, but were not such in the proper sense. 
They pointed to Redemption in the future ; but 
could not proclaim that it was already present. 
The Absolution in the New Testament so closely 
approaches the office of a sacrament, that it is not 
surprising that Melanchthon, in the Apology, 
designates it as such. Like a sacrament, it individu- 
alizes the Gospel promise, but it lacks the divinely- 



WORD AND SACRAMENTS. 173 

appointed element. Confirmation is without divine 
institution, and is nothing but a very useful and 
impressive ceremony for admitting members to the 
full communion of the Church. The Extreme 
Unction of the New Testament (James 5 : 14; Mark 
6: 13) is a different rite from that of more recent 
times, as its efficacy lay in the prayer, while the 
anointing was for a medicinal purpose. Ordination 
contains a blessing, but it has reference to a special 
grace for the exercise of the duties of the ministry, 
1 Tim. 4: 14, and is not an ordinance to apply 
forgiveness of sins. Marriage is not an act, but a 
relation ; and its promises refer not to the spiritual, 
but to the natural life. Divine institution, though 
it is, there is no assurance of forgiveness connected 
with it, there is no proclamation through it of the 
Plan of Salvation. 

As the life of the sacrament is thus the Word of 
God which it imparts, and the elements are a sub- 
ordinate factor, when the presence of the latter is 
assured, questions of its mode are of relative unim- 
portance. Such is that of the amount of water to 
be used and the manner in which it is to be applied, 
whether by sprinkling, pouring or immersion. Such 
also are such questions concerning the Lord's Sup- 
per, as to whether the bread be of wheat or of rice, 
leavened or unleavened, broken in or before the 
distribution, in the form of wafers or not, whether 
it be given into the hands or into the mouths of the 
communicants, etc. Nevertheless questions which 



174 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

of themselves are matters of indifference, may, 
tinder circumstances, be matters of principle, where 
the regular order of the Church is arbitrarily set 
aside or an indifferent matter becomes the badge of 
error. 



CHAPTER XX. 



THE WORD AND PRAYER. 



Besides the Word and Sacraments, it has been 
sometimes claimed that Prayer is a means of grace. 
Nothing can be clearer than the promises concerning 
Prayer which the Holy Scriptures record, or the 
encouragements they offer to pray without ceasing, 
with the firm confidence that the prayer will be un- 
doubtedly answered. God's grace attends and fol- 
lows every true prayer. When we in everything by 
prayer and supplication make our requests known 
unto God, the peace of God, which passeth all 
understanding, keeps our hearts and minds, Phil. 
4 : 6. "Ye have not, because ye ask not," James 4: 2. 
But when, upon the basis of such passages, it is 
claimed that Prayer is a means of grace, the claim 
is made from a misconception of what is meant by 
the expression " Means of Grace." The Means of 
Grace are institutions in which God approaches man 
with the blessings of salvation. Prayer, however, 
is an approach of man to God. The efficacy of 
Pra}^er lies in the Word of God upon which it is 
based, and which it appropriates. Not every desire 
of the heart, not every request of the lips, is Prayer. 



176 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

There must be a preceding promise, which faith 
makes its own, and holds up before God, pleading 
with Him that it is sure that Pie cannot be false to His 
Word , but that this promise will be certainly fulfilled . 
That only is true Prayer, when there is a fulfilment 
of what St. John writes: "If we know that He 
heais us whatsoever we ask, w T e know that w r e have 
the petitions that we desired of Him, " i John 5:15. 
Prayer is the voice of faith, and faith comes from 
and leads to the Word of God. 

The Word of God is thus properly the only 
Means of Grace, whether that Word come to us in 
its general, or in its individualized form. But in 
insisting upon the Word as the sole Means of Grace, 
the error must be avoided that its efficacy is exerted 
solely by the moral force of the truth it presents. 
There is a direct influence of the Holy Spirit super- 
naturally working through Word and Sacrament that 
gives the truth of Inspiration a power, unlike that 
which is exerted by all other teaching. It per- 
suades and convicts, not because of the self- 
evidencing power of the truth, but because it is the 
organ through which the Holy Spirit reaches hearts. 
The fact that the Holy Spirit works through means, 
cannot be interpreted as implying that in imparting 
to the Word efficacy, He Himself is not there. On 
the contrary, He directs every Word that is spoken, 
and concurs with it as truly, as though He were 
immediately acting upon man's heart without any 
instrumentality. 



PART IV. 



THE EFFECTS OF 
REDEMPTION. 



177 



CHAPTER XXI. 



REGENERATION. 



The first end towards which the Holy Spirit 
works through Word and Sacrament, is Regenera- 
tion. Man by nature is spiritually dead. Although 
he enters this world by birth as a redeemed creature, 
the first movement of divine grace towards him is to 
enable him to personally appropriate this Redemp- 
tion. But for him to do this, in his state of spirit- 
ual death , is impossible. He cannot make the feeblest 
response to the offers of salvation, except through 
new powers bestowed upon him by the Holy Spirit. 
The Word might as well be announced to the rocks 
and mountains, as to the natural man, unless the 
proclamation of the Word were accompanied by a 
peculiar and direct energy of the Holy Spirit mak- 
ing man receptive and responsive to the Word. 
Preparatory, therefore, to Regeneration are Vocation 
and Illumination. The Call is the bringing of God's 
Word with its offers of salvation, to men. Illumi- 
nation is the action of the Holy Spirit accompanying 
the Call, by which He enables man to understand 
what is meant by both Law and Gospel. In order 
that the things of the Spirit of God may be spirit- 



180 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

ually discerned, the natural darkness of man's mind 
must be illumined. The knowledge of the letter is 
important ; but it never can be saving knowledge, 
unless interpreted by- the presence of the Holy 
Spirit. Where grammars and lexicons and philo- 
logical researches and the opinions of commentators 
and theologians fail, the Holy Spirit offers a sure 
interpretation, and makes of it a personal matter 
for every individual coming under His influence. 
Such illuminating grace, always attending the Word, 
may be resisted and checked by man at any stage. 
Where unchecked, the result is Regeneration. Man 
is brought to see and acknowledge his sins, to appre- 
hend clearly what is meant in the Gospel, and to 
appropriate to himself all that is included in both 
Law and Gospel. 

Regeneration, as we first consider it, is the im- 
partation of spiritual life ; as generation is the begin- 
ning of physical life. It is that act of the Holy 
Spirit, by which the soul, previously spiritually 
dead, becomes spiritually alive. But as faith is the 
organ of our spiritual life, Gal. 2 : 20, Regeneration 
must be occupied with the bestowing of faith. It is, 
on the one hand, the "conferring of the power to be- 
lieve " collatio virium credendi" QuKnstkdT, John 
1:12; and since the restoration of such power is in- 
separable from its exercise, it is the act of the Holy 
Spirit by which faith is given (" donatio fidei," 
Hoi,lazius ; salvicae fidei procreatio, Cai/dvius), 
Gal. 2 : 20 ; 3 : 26 ; 1 John 5:1. Thus the Holy 



REGENERATION. 181 

Spirit, by one and the same act, gives man the 
power to believe, and leads him to exercise this 
power. When Christ said to the man with the 
withered hand: "Stretch forth thy hand," Luke 
6 : 10, His word carried with it a virtue which 
enabled the man to do what he had hitherto been 
unable to do. God, working through His Word, 
called forth man's act and effectually wrought in it. 
The hand that had hitherto been dead, became 
alive, and the forces of life began to move. 

Regeneration is not a process, but an instanta- 
neous act of God. When regarded as gradual, it 
has been confounded either with man's exercise of 
the new powers therein bestowed, or it has stood for 
the work of the Holy Spirit w T hereby faith grows. 
Regeneration includes only the beginning of spiritual 
life. The moment the first spark of faith begins, 
the soul is both regenerated and justified. ^ 

Regeneration and Conversion are often con- 
founded. The former refers to the implanting within 
man of new powers ; and the latter to the exercise 
of these powers in turning from sin. In the former, 
the Gospel is the instrument ; in the latter, both 
Law and Gospel. Regeneration, in the proper 
sense, is the work of God alone, in which man's 
will is absolutely passive. Conversion, when dis- 
tinguished from Regeneration, is the impulse given 
the regenerated will by the Holy Spirit, and its con- 
sequent activity in turning from sin to God. 

Conversion and Repentance are, from the Scrip- 



i82 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

tural standpoint, synonymous. Repentance is often 
misunderstood, since we read into it the ideas con- 
nected with the Latin words, from which it is derived. 
We think, therefore, of it, as chiefly "sorrow." 
But, as Luther has so well explained the subject in 
his letter to Leo X., Repentanc'e is properly "a 
change of mind " (jneta?ioid)^° It is an act, lyy 
which man turns away from what had formerly 
delighted him to what he had formerly hated. 
2 Cor. 5:17 thus applies to both Repentance and 
Sanctification. He views all things in a different 
relation, in a new light, and with respect to new 
ends. Hence Repentance or Conversion has two 
sides, viz., contrition and faith. Man regards his 
past life with shame and sorrow ; and he looks away 
from it with joy to Christ, in whom he finds its sins 
pardoned. As faith grows, so Contrition grows ; or 
using Repentance, in its popular and etymological, 
although not in its Scriptural sense, the greater the 
faith, the deeper the Repentance. Contrition is not 
a matter of the emotions ; it is simply man's aver- 
sion to sin. The manner in which this aversion 
affects persons of different temperaments, sexes, 
ages, and conditions of health must necessarily va^. 
The different forms of sin in which their guilt has 
been greatest, also are to be considered. If the 
aversion to sin be true, the experience of one toward 
it, cannot be made the experience of all. Neither 
such conversions as those of Paul and Augustine, 
on the one hand, nor of Timothy and Melanchthon, 



REGENERATION, 183 

on the other, dare be made the standard by which 
to judge those of all Christians. 

If theologians be disposed to argue concerning 
the question concerning what the will of man has to 
do in Conversion, let them first define what is meant 
by Conversion. If it mean the act w T hereby man is 
turned from spiritual death to life, then nothing 
can more admirably express the true relation of the 
w T ill, than the very forcible language of the Formula 
of Concord : 

"In spiritual and divine things, the intellect, 
heart and w 7 ill of the unregenerate man cannot, in 
any way, by their own natural powers, understand, 
believe, accept, think, will, begin, effect, do, work 
or concur in working anything, but they are entirely 
dead to good, and corrupt ; so that in man's nature, 
since the Fall, there is, before Regeneration, not the 
least spark of spiritual power remaining still present, 
b}~ which, of himself, he can prepare himself for 
God's grace, or accept the offered grace, or ; for and 
of himself, be capable of it, or apply or accomodate 
himself thereto, or, by his own powers, be able of 
himself, as of himself, to aid, do, work or concur in 
working an3 T thing for his Conversion, either entirely, 
or iii half, or in even the least or most inconsider- 
able part," (p. 552, §7). 

But if Conversion refer to that which occurs in 
the regenerate, there is undoubtedly a concurrence 
of man's will, as it has been liberated and quickened 
and endowed with new powers by the Holy Spirit, 



184 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

The entire controversy is settled by the Catechism, 
when it says : ' ' I believe that I cannot, by my own 
reason or strength, believe in Jesus Christ, my 
Iyord, or come to Him.'^ 1 



CHAPTER XXII. 



FAITH. 



As Regeneration consists, therefore, in that act 
of the Holy Spirit, by which man is given Faith, we 
come next to the consideration of what is meant by 
Faith. Whatever may be its meaning elsewhere, it 
has to do here with a relation of person to person. It 
is a disposition of man towards God, by which man 
makes God the center of his life with all its thoughts 
and activities. God is to Faith the standard of all 
truth, and holiness, and right, the foundation of 
all being, the object of every hope and aspiration. 
Faith is the forsaking of all that is not God or of 
God, and the seeking for and cleaving to God alone. 
It is taking God to myself as my all, and commend- 
ing my all to God, in life, death and eternity. The 
Faith of Regeneration destroys faith in ourselves 
and in the world, and leaves alone Faith in God, 
with all that this Faith comprises. The change 
designated by Regeneration causes one to give self 
to Him to whom formerly one had been entirely 
adverse or hostile. 

Faith has its intellectual side ; but it is not 
mere assent to any doctrine or to any number of 



186 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

doctrines. It is essentially a matter of the heart 
and will. It is the sinking of my will into God's 
will ; the harmonizing of my heart with God's 
heart. This implies necessarily that all that God 
reveals, is received without doubt or question, as 
soon as it is recognized as a revelation of God. 
The disbelief of revealed truth when that truth is 
recognized as coming from God, proves the lack of 
Faith. But revealed truth may be received, as an 
intellectual matter, and man become a theologian, 
by correctly stating revealed truth, as he may 
become a metaphysician, or a scientist, by correctly 
stating natural truth, without thereby having the 
Faith which Regeneration gives ; and } 7 et the Faith 
which Regeneration gives requires that everything 
that is recognized as coming from a Revealing God 
be believed, as also everything that is recognized as 
coming from a Commanding God be obeyed. We 
believe the doctrine, and we obey the command- 
ment, because both doctrine and commandment rest 
upon the Word of God in whom we believe. Faith 
is a relation of person to person. 

But the very conception of the Word of God as 
the means of grace, implies that the Holy Spirit 
offers certain truths for the purpose of communicat- 
ing through them Faith, and then of strengthening 
Faith through Faith's continual exercise with these 
truths. For it must not be forgotten that the 
truths of revelation have their significance, not as 
co-ordinate and isolated abstract propositions, but 



FAITH. 187 

as they constitute an organically-united revelation 
of God Himself. Everything taught in Holy 
Scripture is concerning God and His relation to 
man. Its successive parts only exhibit God to us 
from various sides. The one truth of God has to be 
broken into parts adapted to our finite capacities. 
Our life-communion with God is dependent upon 
the entrance, into our minds and hearts, of God as 
revealed from various sides and relations, and upon 
the attitude of our wills towards this diversified 
revelation, as its various parts are presented to us. 

The center of this Revelation is Christ ; since all 
that God is to us, He is in Christ, and all that we know 
of God, we know through Christ. Hence, the Faith 
of Regeneration is concentrated in Faith in Christ. 
The sum and substance of the Gospel preaching is : 
li Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ/' Acts 16 : 31. 
"If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord 
Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart, that God 
hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved, ' ' 
Rom. 10 : 9. The center of this center is the doc- 
trine of a dying, risen, ascended and reigning 
Christ in its relation to my sin and Redemption. 
Every inspired word of God coming to man in a 
general form, is accepted by Faith as a personal 
message ; it brings a special and individual blessing 
to me, from my living and loving Lord. 

Faith in Christ implies, therefore, man's con- 
viction that he is a sinner, that by nature he is 
beneath God's wrath, and that he is helpless, and 



188 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

needs a Saviour. It implies the acceptance of Christ, 
in His divine-human person, and in His various offices 
and works. It means that I make all that Christ 
is my own, and give myself over to Christ to 
be entirely His. It means that I know that He 
lives in me, and I live in Him ; and that there is 
no relationship in life which is as near and constant, 
as that between Christ and the soul who accepts 
His Redemption. We do not mean that Faith 
enters all at once into the full consciousness of all 
that is thus implied ; but that all these elements are 
there, and ultimately become the comfort of the 
believer. 

Faith implies more than the probability of the 
truth of God's promises. It regards them as cer- 
tainties. Popular usage has diluted the force of 
the expression: "I believe," until it has often 
become little more than: "I guess/ ' This has 
arisen from the perversion of the meaning of Faith 
in Christ. On the contrary the Epistle to the 
Hebrews declares Faith ' ' the substance of things 
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen," Heb, 
ii : i. St. Paul explains : " I know whom I have 
believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep 
that which I have committed unto Him," 2 Tim. 
1 : 12. St. John exhorts: "I have written unto 
you, that ye may know that ye have eternal life," 
1 John 5 : 13. St. Paul warns that doubts concern- 
ing the absolute certainty of the application of 
God's promises to believers, endanger their salva- 



FAITH. 189 

tion, in the words: "Know ye not your own 
selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye 
be reprobates ? " 2 Cor. 13:5. 

All that is less than absolute certainty is doubt. 
Doubt is disbelief. It is the regarding that, as 
possibly false, which God has declared to be true, 
z. c, making God a liar. Nevertheless such is the 
weakness of man, even when the work of grace has 
begun in him, that Faith has constantly to struggle 
with doubts, and the prayer to be constantly on the 
lips : " Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief," 
Mark 9 : 24. But just in so far as there is lack of 
complete certainty, Faith is imperfect and sinful. 
The model presented us in Scripture is that of 
Abraham, "who, against hope, believed in hope, 
being persuaded that what God had promised, lie 
was able also to perform," Rom. 5 : 18, 21. 

The certainty of Faith is not a human per- 
suasion, arising from any process of reasoning upon 
the basis of the evidences of the truth of Scripture, 
or from the effects of Faith in the life. It is the 
work of the Holy Spirit, testifying in man's heart 
to the truth, " the Spirit bearing witness with our 
spirits that we are the children of God," Rom. 8 : 
16, "the anointing," teaching believers of all 
things, 1 John 2 : 27, the sealing of believers " with 
that Holy Spirit of promise," Eph 1 : 13. 

Faith not only has its degrees, but it also has 
its perils. Faith may be lost. The restored 
spiritual life may depart. We cannot interpret the 



igo ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

constant warnings of the New Testament to believers 
in any other way. The falls of David and Peter 
would be inexplicable, w r ere it otherwise. The 
testimony is explicit to the fact that, while, in some 
cases, where Faith has been lost it has been restored, 
and that the Holy Spirit follows the erring one as 
David and Peter were followed, in order to lead 
them to repentance, in other cases the departure 
has been permanent, Heb. 6 : 4-6. We cannot enter 
here into the treatment of the Sin against the Holy 
Ghost, except to call to mind the fact that no one 
has committed this sin, with whom the Holy Spirit, 
still strives, and in whom there is the least anxiety 
concerning the sin. Such anxiety indicates that 
the person has not been absolutely deserted by 
the Spirit, and that the grace of God is still en- 
deavoring to win him back to the high estate 
whence he has fallen. The same Lord who bade 
Peter forgive his brother, if he w r ere to transgress 
against him and return seventy times seven times, 
Matt. 18 ; 22, will not do less towards those who 
return to the covenant of God's grace. If there are 
those who have been regenerated, who ultimately 
perish, the reason is not only that they fell from 
God's grace, but especially because, after falling, 
they would not return. As the Apostle describes 
his anxiety in bringing back the Galatians to the 
grace whence they had fallen, in the words : ' ' My 
little children, of whom I travail in birth again 
until Christ be found in you," Gal. 4: 19, so the 



FAITH. 191 

Lord Himself tells the secret of man's ruin from 
first to last, when He declares: "I would, but ye 
would not/' Matt. 24: 37. It is man's continued 
hostile attitude towards the means, hy which the 
Holy Spirit works Faith, that prevents his salva- 
tion, whether he have, or he have never been regen- 
erated. God does not recall His promises, or with- 
draw His grace ; but man casts himself outside the 
sphere within which grace works. God's side of 
the covenant is permanent. When it is broken, it 
is broken by man ; and when it is restored, itis restored 
through the reclaiming efforts of the Holy Spirit in 
influencing man's return to its terms. " If we believe 
not, yet He abideth faithful, He cannot deny Him- 
self." Man who has fallen may read in his baptism, 
God's disposition towards him, which remains unal- 
tered, except, as man is indifferent to the blessings 
there provided, and the promises there announced. 
Nowhere is this taught more forcibly than by 
Luther in his Large Catechism: "Our baptism 
abides for ever ; and even though some one should 
fall from it and sin, we nevertheless always have 
access thereto, that we may again subdue the old 
man. * * Repentance is nothing else than a 
return and approach to baptism, that we return to 
and practice what had been begun and had been 
abandoned. I say this in order that we may not 
fall into the opinion that our baptism is something 
past, which we can no longer use, after we have 
fallen again into sin, The reason is that it was 



i 9 2 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

regarded only according to the external act, once 
performed, and completed. This arose from the 
fact that St. Jerome wrote that ' repentance is the 
second plank, upon which we must swim forth and 
cross over after the ship is broken,' * * This 
expression is not correct, or else never rightly under- 
stood. For the ship never breaks, because it is the 
institution of God, and not a matter of ours ; but it 
happens that we slip and fall out of the ship. Yet 
if any one fall out, let him see that he again swim 
up and cling to it." 

l^or is Calvin lacking in a similiar testimonial 
to the permanent efficacy of God's promise as 
applied in baptism : * ' Though all men were false 
and perfidious, yet God ceases not to be true ; though 
all men were lost, yet Christ remains a Saviour. 
We confess, therefore, that during that time we 
received no advantage whatever from baptism, 
because w r e totally neglected the promise offered us 
in it, without which baptism is nothing. Now since, 
by the grace of God, w 7 e have begun to repent, we 
accuse our blindness and hardness of heart for our long 
ingratitude to His great goodness ; yet w T e believe 
that the promise itself never expired, but, on the 
contrary, we reason in the following manner : By bap- 
tism, God promises remission of sins, and will certainly 
fulfil the promise to all believers ; that promise was 
offered to us in baptism ; let us, therefore, embrace 
it by faith : it was long dormant by reason of our 
unbelief ; now let us receive it by faith. "5 2 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



FAITH OF INFANTS. 



The question whether infants can be regenerated 
is the same as whether infants can have faith. If 
everything that characterizes the faith of adults be 
regarded essential to faith, i. e., if faith, at an 
advanced stage of development be made the univer- 
sal test of faith, we cannot ascribe it to infants. 
The Scholastics laid great emphasis on the intellect- 
ual side of faith. "To believe," says Thomas 
Aquinas, ' ' implies the consideration of the intellect, 
combined with examination and consent on the part 
of the will." «■ " To believe is an act of the intellect 
assenting to divine truth, arising from a determina- 
tion of the will impelled by grace." 53 This means 
that faith can exist only as a truth is presented to 
the intellect, to which after deliberation, inquiry and 
examination, the will determines to assent. The 
Reformers were especially emphatic in maintaining 
that this conception overlooked the most important 
element of faith, viz., confidence. The dogmati- 
cians accordingly added "confidence," and analyzed 
the entire conception of faith into the three elements 
of knowledge, assent and confidence. But since 



i 9 4 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

where there is no confidence there is no faith, 
knowledge and assent do not belong to the essence 
of faith. They are the pre-requisites of a mature 
faith. They are inevitably found where there is 
faith in a doctrine. I cannot, in the proper sense, 
believe a doctrine unless I have been taught what it 
is, and assent to it, and then determine that my life 
shall be regulated according to it. Such faith in the 
doctrines of revelation will be the necessary result 
of faith in the person who reveals them. But the 
essence of faith given in regeneration, is confidence 
or trust in a person. It is that temper or disposition 
of the heart towards God by which the person is 
rendered capable of receiving whatever God offers, 
and of responding to every word of God, through 
new powers wherewith God has endowed him. 

Infants are, therefore, incapable of acts of Faith, 
although they have a habit of Faith ; just as they 
are incapable of acts of sin, although they have, in 
natural depravity or Original Sin, a sinful habit. 
We say that men have an innate knowledge of God. 
By this we do not mean that they are conscious of 
the existence and presence of God, and of any 
relations in which they stand to Him ; but only 
that the human mind is endowed with faculties that 
inevitably draw the conclusion of the existence and 
of certain attributes of God from the contemplation of 
Nature. In like manner, we claim that when, on 
the basis of certain texts of Scripture, we teach the 
possibility of infant regeneration, the faith that is 



FAITH OF INFANTS. 195 

therein said to be wrought, must correspond to 
other determinations of their spiritual nature. The 
Faith of infants is like the knowledge and the sin of 
infants. The actual presence is not disproved by 
the fact that it is not consciously present. The 
Faith may lie dormant, like the words of Christ to the 
Apostles, until the Holy Spirit recalled them, or like 
the attainments of a scholar while he is sleeping. 

We may again quote Cai/vtn, because he is 
often regarded as the representative of a school 
most remote from such doctrine. The possibility of 
the regeneration of infants, he finds to be a necessary 
member in the argument for Infant Baptism. 
Answering the objection to Infant Baptism that 
infants cannot be regenerated or believe, he says : 

"Their objection, that the Holy Spirit, in 
the Scriptures, acknowledges no regeneration, ex- 
cept from ' the incorruptible seed, ' that is, ' the 
Word of God,' is a misinterpretation of that passage 
of Peter, which merely comprehends believers who 
had been taught by the preaching of the Gospel. 
To such persons, indeed, we grant that the Word of 
the Lord is the only seed of spiritual regeneration ; 
but we deny that it ought to be concluded from this, 
that infants cannot be regenerated by the power of 
God, which is as easy to Him, as it is wonderful and 
mysterious to us. Besides, it would not be safe to 
affirm that the Lord cannot reveal Himself in any 
way so as to make Himself known to them. 

But our opponents say ' Faith cometh by hear- 



i 9 6 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION, 

ing, ' of which they have not yet acquired the use, 
and they cannot be capable of knowing God ; for 
Moses declares them to ■ have no knowledge between 
good and evil.' But they do not consider, that 
when the Apostle makes hearing the source of Faith, 
he only describes the ordinary economy and dis- 
pensation of the Lord, which he generally observes 
in the calling of His people. * ■* I would beg 
them to inform me, what danger can result from 
affirming that they already receive some portion 
of that grace, of which they will ere long enjoy 
the full abundance. For if the plenitude of life 
consists in the perfect knowledge of God, — when 
some of them, whom death removes from the 
present state in their earliest infancy, pass into 
eternal life, they are certainly admitted to the im- 
mediate contemplation of the presence of God. As 
the Lord, therefore, will illuminate them with the 
full splendor of His countenance in heaven, why 
may He not also, if such be His pleasure, irradiate 
them with some faint rays of it in the present life ; 
especially if He does not deliver them from all 
ignorance before He liberates them from the prison 
of the body ? Not that I would hastily affirm them 
to be endued with the same Faith which we ex- 
perience in ourselves, or at all to possess a similar 
knowledge of Faith, which I would prefer leaving 
in suspense ; my design is only to check their foolish 
arrogance, who presumptuously assert or deny what- 
ever they please. "54 



FAITH OF INFANTS. 197 

But far more important than the testimony of 
theologians is that of Holy Scripture. It declares 
absolutely that without Regeneration, there is no 
entrance into the Kingdom of God, John 3 : 3-5, 
and, just as clearly and plainly, that the Kingdom 
of God is for infants as well as for adults, Matt. 19 : 
14; Luke 18: 16. Christ Himself expressly declares 
that there have been little children who believed in 
Him, Matt. 18 : 6 ; Mark 9 : 42. As infants as well 
as adults are comprehended in Redemption, the 
Holy Spirit has His own way of applying to them 
Redemption and bringing them to Faith. The 
Faith of infants is that disposition towards God 
which is effected by the application of Redemption. 
In John the Baptist, this disposition was imparted 
without the use of means, and even before birth, 
Luke 1 : 15. If God, therefore, impart Regenera- 
tion without means, as we believe He does also in 
infants who die unbaptized, what should prevent 
Him from accomplishing the same ordinarily 
through Baptism, His appointed means for that pur- 
pose, John 3:5; Tit. 3:5; Eph. 5:26; Gal. 3 : 27; 
1 Pet. 3:21? He does not reach them through the 
Word, as heard or read. Nor does He reach them 
through the Lord's Supper. The only means of 
grace that is left is Baptism. 55 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



JUSTIFICATION. 



Inseparable from Regeneration is Justification. 
Everyone living in the grace of Regeneration is 
justified. Ever}^ justified person is regenerate. The 
end of Regeneration is Justification, as it is the office 
of Regeneration to impart faith, and, through faith, 
there is Justification. But the necessity of drawing 
a sharp distinction becomes manifest, when it is 
remembered that Regeneration is a work of the 
Holy Spirit within man, while Justification is a 
change of relation between God and man, and is, 
therefore entirely external. Man is not justified by 
the work of the Holy Spirit w 7 hereby faith is 
wrought. His Justification is found entirely in that 
which is outside of and beyond Himself, viz. , in that 
all-sufficient righteousness, provided for him in the 
work and sufferings of Christ, the God-man, during 
the thirty-three years of His visible stay on this 
earth, over eighteen hundred years ago. Regenera- 
tion simply furnishes man with the means whereby 
he appropriates to himself this righteousness. The 



JUSTIFICA TION. 



199 



three chief acts of the applying grace of the Holy 
Spirit may be distinguished thus : 56 



Regeneration. 


Justification. 


Sa fictijica Hon . 


An Act. 


An Act. 


A Process. 


Of God alone. 


God Alone. 


God and man. 


Internal. 


External. 


Internal-External. 


Instantaneous. 


Instantaneous ; 
constantly repeated. 


Gradual. 


Equal. 


Equal. 


Unequal. 


Terfect. 


Perfect. 


Partial in this life. 


From death. 


From guilt. 


From defilement. 


Gives faith. 


Pardon and title to 
Heaven. 


Holiness. 


Quickens man. 


Reconciles God. 


Restores God's im£ 



To appreciate the nature of Justification we 
must review all that has been said concerning the 
work of Christ. Justification is the application of 
that work in the strictest sense. By Justification, 
all that Christ has suffered and done actually becomes 
the property of the individual believer. It has 
been his by right before ; now it becomes his by 
actual possession. In Christ, God looks with favor 
upon the entire human race ; outside of Christ, He 
looks with favor upon none of our race. In Christ, 
He has actually forgiven all men ; out of Christ, He 
has forgiven none. Justification is, therefore, that 
act b}^ which God, finding an individual in Christ, 
accounts, as though they were his, all that Christ 
has done and suffered. The one thus regarded, is 
made, in God's account, the righteous one that 
Christ was, during the years in which He was sub- 
ject to the Law, and bore the burden of our sins. 
Every charge against Him is cancelled . Every shame 



200 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

is covered. Every spark of anger in God's heart is 
quenched by the Blood of Christ. God has towards 
him no other thoughts but those of love. His love 
for him is just as ardent as His anger was consum- 
ing. He, who is justified, is far more than a for- 
given sinner. He has been furnished with the full 
and complete title to all the rewards which Christ's 
obedience to the law has earned. There is absolutely 
nothing more for him to fear except his own weak- 
ness. There is nothing for him to expect but ever 
new realizations of the blessedness that, with Christ, 
he has received. 

That this is the meaning of Justification is clear 
from the entire teaching of Holy Scripture. The 
proof is not dependent upon a few pages scattered 
here and there, and torn from their connection, but 
it underlies the entire revelation of the Gospel. 
That the word " justify, " outside of this article, 
may sometimes mean to make one inherently right- 
eous is not denied. Nor is it denied that Justifica- 
tion, as an act of the applying grace of God, is 
always attended with incipient righteousness, and 
that the justified man at once begins to be a holy 
man. The question here has to do exclusively with 
the ground upon which sinful man is forgiven and 
declared worthy of everlasting life. This is 
entirely what Christ is to him, and not what he is 
in Christ. 

The argument may be briefly recapitulated as 
follows : 



JUSTIFICA TION. 201 

1 . The word ' ' to justify ' ' was habitually used 
> among the Hebrews to indicate the legal vindication 
of a person before a court of justice. Deut. 25 : 1 ; 
Ps. 82:3 ("do justice," literally "justify." Cf. 
2 Sam. 15:4) ; Is. 43 : 9. 

2. This is still more manifest by the fact that 
"to justify" and "to condemn" are sometimes 
contrasted. Prov. 17:15; Deut. 25 : 1 ; Is. 50 : 8 ; 
Matt. 12 : 37 ; Rom. 8 133, 34 ; 5 : 16. 

3. "Justify ' ' is thus used in a forensic sense, 
without regard to the question whether the cause be 
righteous or unrighteous. Is. 5 : 23 ; Prov. 17 : [5. 

4. From a human, it is transferred to God's 
tribunal, where ' ' to justify ' ' carries with it also the 
meaning of conferring the rewards that are due the 
righteous and innocent. Ex. 23 : 7 ; 1 Kings 

8 : 3^, 33- 

5. It acquires also the general meaning of "to 
approve, or acknowledge as righteous. " Luke 7 : 29, 
35 ; 16 : 15 ; 10 : 29 ; Matt. 11 : 19. 

All these items pertain to the proof that the 
word has such meaning even in other relations than 
that of the justification of the sinner before God. 
But that it has this meaning here, is the great theme 
of the Gospel, as St. Paul has so clearly shown, 
especially in the Epistles to the Romans and the 
Galatians. Read only the third chapter of Romans, 
and follow the argument. The Law, it says, shows 
that all are under sin, stopping every mouth and 
condemning all as guilty before God, because, by its 



202 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

deeds, no flesh can be justified. But we are justified 
freely, i. e. , without the deeds of the law, Romans 
3 : 19, 20, 24, 28. In Romans 5 : 16, the judgment 
of the I^aw to condemnation is contrasted with the 
free gift, which notwithstanding man's many offences 
is justification. The transfer from Romans 7 to 
Romans 8 contrasts the way of Salvation by the 
Law, with that ttirough the Gospel, and show T s that 
Justification is found only in the latter, Rom. 8:2,3. 
"Justifying " according to Rom. 8 : 33 is the not 
laying of anything to the charge of God's elect ; it 
is not condemning, Rom. 8 : 34. According to Rom. 
10 : 3, it is the not having one's own righteousness, 
but having the righteousness of Christ. Even 
though man were unconscious of any sin, he could 
not find in this his justification, 1 Cor. 4 : 3, 4, 
because he is here judged not in man's judgment, 
but in that of God. 

But God does not justify without a ground of 
Justification. The guilt and punishment of man's 
sin are not annihilated. Every penalty of trans- 
gression is exacted. All the disgrace of sin must 
have some one to whom it is imputed. God does 
not declare man righteous and worthy of everlasting 
life, unless there is actually presented a complete 
equivalent for the most far-reaching demands of the 
Law. God's mercy is not exercised at the expense 
of His justice. But, in Justification, the righteous- 
ness of Christ is accounted ours. Christ stands before 
God charged with our sins; and we stand before 



JUSTIFICA TION. 203 

God, with all Christ's merits, regarded as ours. 

It is not, then, our life in Christ, or Christ's life 
in us that justifies us, but it is alone what Christ was 
for us, when He was made sin for us who knew no 
sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God 
in Him, 2 Cor. 5:21, when He bore our sins in His 
own Body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, 
should live unto righteousness, 2 Peter 2 : 24. It is 
not what Christ is for us now, or what He will be to 
us in Eternity, or what He has been for us during 
the period since His Resurrection and Ascension, 
but entirely what He was for us during the thirty- 
three 3'ears of Humiliation that is the ground of our 
Justification. This has been explained already under 
Redemption. 

The righteousness of Christ, provided and 
offered to all, is individually appropriated by faith. 
What grace has already made ours by right, through 
faith becomes ours by possession and full use. This 
faith is given man in Regeneration. It justifies, not 
because it is the root of a holy life, not because God 
accepts it as an equivalent for a holy life, nor even 
because through it Christ dwells in us, and the Holy 
Ghost is given, and man becomes a temple of God. 
But we are justified by faith, Romans 5:1, because 
God has made faith the instrument whereby we take 
to ourselves and use against all the accusations of 
the Law, and offer, in answer to all the promises of 
eternal life, all that has been provided for us in 
Redemption. By faith all the rewards of Christ's 



204 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION, 

State of Humiliation are made mine. 

We are not only justified by faith ; but we are 
justified by faith alone. Faith is never alone \ 
because wherever there is faith, there is the Holy 
Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is always active. But 
the new life, thus quickened, has nothing to do with 
Justification , except as it is the inevitable result of 
Justification. Probably the relation cannot be better 
stated than thus : Wherever there is faith, there is 
love and a holy life, because wherever there is faith, 
there is Justification, and wherever there is Justifi- 
cation a holy life immediately begins. If the new 
life that accompanies and follows faith were made a 
concurrent instrument in Justification, the ground 
of Justification would no longer be the merits of 
Christ alone, but it would be partly the merits of 
Christ, and partly our own holiness. We are 
justified by faith alone without works, because 
our Justification is found entirely in Christ, 
and we accept Christ, not by works, or love, 
or a holy life, but entirely and alone by faith- 
We may well regard the entire situation, as though 
there w r ere neither love, nor any gift of the Spirit 
within us — not even faith — and we could only turn 
away from ourselves, overwhelmed with the sense of 
our spiritual poverty, and point to the Cross with 
the words : ' c There is all my righteousness. ' ' Thus 
the efficacy of faith lies entirely in the object which 
it apprehends. There is no virtue in faith of itself. 
Faith apprehending anything but a promise of God 



JUSTIFICA TION. 205 

is worthless. Faith apprehending God as Creator, 
or as Sanctifier, does not justify. Nor does faith in 
our faith, or in our assurance of faith justify. Men 
are justified solely by faith in God as Redeemer. 
We are justified solely by the merits of Christ 
apprehended by faith, or, otherwise stated, by faith 
apprehending the merits of Christ. This alone 
makes the righteousness of Christ ours. 57 

This faith is not, as sometimes misrepresented, 
simply a belief in a doctrinal proposition, as though 
we are justified by faith when we believe that we 
are justified by faith. It is confidence in a person. 
It is man's complete submission in intellect, affec- 
tions and will to Christ. It is man's finding in him- 
self nothing that is good, and holy, and right, and 
his finding his all in Christ. He is justified by 
faith alone when, recognizing his utter ruin by 
nature, he gives himself to Christ, as his wisdom 
and righteousness, his sanctification and redemp- 
tion. 

Justification has no degrees. There is no such 
a thing as a partial Justification. Man is either 
completely forgiven all his sins, or he is forgiven 
none whatever. The ground of Justification being 
always Christ's merits, either all of His merits are 
ours, or none are ours. Even the weakest faith 
makes us partakers of Christ's righteousness ; and 
hence the weakest faith justifies as fully as the 
strongest faith, since it is not properly faith, but the 
object that faith apprehends, that justifies. 



206 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

Justification is therefore instantaneous. The 
very moment that the feeblest faith in Christ as a 
Redeemer is enkindled, man is justified. But while 
instantaneous, it is an act of God, that is constantly 
repeated. Man's nature, until the end of life being 
infected with sin, needs, when regarded by itself, 
constant forgiveness. Hence, even the justified, 
as they survey themselves, daily turn to God, with 
the prayer : i l Forgive us our trespasses. ' ' Assured 
that they are forgiven, they crave continually 
renewed forgiveness ; for the inner corruption is 
ever making itself felt in fresh offences. This is 
the daily sorrow and repentance for sin, of which 
Luther wrote in the first of his Ninety-five Theses, 
in which he said that ' ' when our Lord Jesus said : 
' Repent,' He meant that the entire life of believers 
should be a repentance." 

It is the person, and not the sins that are for- 
given. When the sins are said to be forgiven, the 
meaning is that the person is forgiven his sins. It 
is, impossible, therefore, not only for some sins to 
be forgiven, while others are unforgiven, but also 
for the guilt of sin to be forgiven, while its punish- 
ments or some of its punishments remain. For 
" there is, therefore, now no condemnation to them 
which are in Christ Jesus," Rom. 8 : i. To those 
who have the righteousness of Christ, there belong 
only the full and complete rewards of that righteous- 
ness. God is never angry with His justified child. 
He has for it no thought except those of pure and 



Jl 'STIFICA TION. 207 

complete love. The reconciliation is perfect. Man 
has courage to feel at home with God, and to address 
Him, not from a distance, and in the language of 
constrained and reverential awe, but with even more 
freedom than the most affectionate child approaches 
the best and tenderest of parents. He is nearer and 
dearer to God, and God is nearer and dearer to him, 
than mother and child are to one another. 



CHAPTER XXV. 



SANCTIFICATION. 



Just as inseparable as Justification is from 
Regeneration, is Sanctification from both. The 
transformation of character known as Sanctification 
or Renovation begins immediately with Justification. 
The very presence of faith sanctifies ; for the 
presence of faith means the presence of the Holy 
Spirit, the Sanctifier. It means the presence of 
Christ in the believer, as St. Paul declares that he 
lives, yet not he, but Christ in him, Gal. 2 : 20. 
Faith at once enkindles love. We cannot believe 
in Christ without loving Him. "We love Him ; 
because He first loved us,'' 1 John 4:19. The more 
the love of Christ towards man is contemplated, the 
deeper grows man's love, Rom. 5:8. As the love 
of Christ is regarded, not simply externally, but, as 
a matter of the believer's Christian experience, in 
his daily and hourly communion with Christ, his 
love to Christ is ever growing. Through this love, 
faith works, Gal. 5:6. " The love of Christ con- 
straineth us * * that they which live should not 
henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him 



SANCTIFICA TION. 209 

which died for them and rose again," 2 Cor. 

5 : 14, 15. 

The passage in Luther's Introduction to the 
Epistle to the Romans, in which he describes the 
energy and activity of faith, is classical and deserves 
to be inscribed in letters of gold upon every memory : 

' ' Faith is not man's opinion and dream * * but 
it is a divine work in us, that changes and begets 
us anew of God, John 1:13. It mortifies the old 
Adam, transforms us into entirely different men in 
heart, mind, will, sense and powers, and brings 
with it the Holy Ghost. Oh, this faith is a living, 
busy, active, efficacious thing, so that it is impossi- 
ble for it not incessantly to do good works. It does 
not ask whether good works are to be done ; but 
before the question has been asked, it has already 
done them, and is always doing them. But he who 
does not these works, is a faithless man, who is 
always groping and looking for faith and good 
works ; and nevertheless knows neither what faith 
or good works are, though he prate in many w r ords 
concerning faith and good works. ' '5 s 

A similar description, Luther has given in his 
Commentary on Genesis : 

1 ' Faith is a change and renewal of the entire 
nature, so that ears, eyes and heart hear, see, feel 
and think entirely differently from other men. For 
faith is a living and powerful thing ; it is not an 
idle thought, neither does it swim upon the heart, 
like a fowl upon water. But as water, warmed by 



2io ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

fire, while remaining water, nevertheless is no 
longer cold, but is warm and an altogether different 
water, so faith, as a work of the Holy Ghost, forms 
another mind and other senses, and makes man en- 
tirely new. Faith, therefore, is a toilsome, difficult 
and powerful thing. ' '59 

The work thus beginning inwardly by the 
presence of the Holy Spirit in the heart, the ex- 
ternal side of Sanctification is to be regarded, only 
as it is a true expression of what has been inwardly 
experienced. The tree must be made good before 
the fruit can be good, Matt. 12 : 33. When hearts 
are purified by faith, Acts 15:9, everything pro- 
ceeding from them is holy. The Holy Spirit dif- 
fuses His influence through the sanctified person- 
ality of the believer. The believer is a new creature 
in Christ Jesus, in whom all things have become 
new. His disposition towards God, his views of 
truth, his standard of judgment, his objects of 
admiration, his motives, his hopes, his entire life 
are new. Instead of seeking only self, he seeks for 
God ; instead of living only for earth and time, he 
lives for Heaven and eternity ; instead of clinging 
only to what he can see and feel, he clings to what 
is beyond the range of sight and sense. His 
character deepens as the eternal and unseen more 
and more predominate in all that he thinks and does. 
The Holy Spirit works through him ; and he co- 
operates with the Holy Spirit in the exercise of the 
new powers with which he is endowed. All that 



SANCTIFICA TION. 211 

he is and lias is directed towards this end. With 
heart intent upon God's will, he loves all that 
God wills and, so far as he is sanctified, does all that 
God directs. He is " created in Christ Jesus unto 
good works, which God hath before ordained that 
we should walk in them," Eph. 2 : 10. He glorifies 
God by a holy life. The importance of Sanctifica- 
tion is in no way diminished by the fact that w^e 
cannot find our Justification in it, or, that only those 
who have been first justified can enter upon a 
sanctified life. 

Unlike Justification, Sanctification is gradual, 
and has its degrees. The old man is more and more 
put off, and the new man more and more put on. 
" Though our outward man perish, yet the inward 
man is renewed day by day," 2 Cor. 4: 16. The 
power of grace more and more subdues the remnants 
of natural depravity, which constantly tempt to sin. 
Through this struggle, the child of God constantly 
advances towards perfection. He works out his 
salvation, while God works in him, Phil. 2 : 12, 13. 

But with all his efforts, until the close of life, 
he cannot reach perfection. No one, except the 
Son of God, has ever lived on earth, who could not 
pray the Lord's Prayer, with its petition for forgive- 
ness, at the conclusion of every day's work. The 
experience of the Apostle Paul, as described in the 
Seventh Chapter of Romans, is that of every Christ-- 
ian. The struggle is* never over, until, at death, 
the sinful flesh is entirely laid aside. The daily 



212 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

repentance of the Christian testifies to the imperfec- 
tion of the renewal, even when it is best. The 
express words of St. John concerning the terrible 
self-deception, into which those fall who profess to 
be without sin, ought to be sufficient, i John i : 10, 
The passages by which an attempt is made to teach 
the possibility of sinless perfection in this life, are, 
either such as set forth the demands of the Law, 
which is never satisfied with less than perfect 
obedience, and constantly reveal man's imperfec- 
tion, Matt. 5 : 48 ; or such as are relative, as 1 John 
4:12, where it is taught that the measure of love is 
the measure of perfection, and 1 John 3:9, where 
the meaning is that, so far as the new life, imparted 
in Regeneration, controls man, he cannot sin ; or 
such as teach the perfection of the righteousness 
which becomes the believers in Justification, not in 
Sanctification, Gal. 5 : 16, etc. The difference 
between the believer and the unbeliever is that, 
while, in the former, sin is ever present, Rom. 7:21, 
sin no longer reigns, Rom. 6 : 21, as in the latter, 
but is constantly losing ground. 60 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



GOOD WORKS. 



The progress of Sanctification is marked by 
good works, and the new life is exercised in good 
works. A good work is a fruit of faith in act, 
whether that act be within the heart, or in the out- 
ward life. It is a free act of a justified person, which 
he performs out of love to God. It has both its 
source and its standard in the Word of God. Faith 
acts not upon its own impulse, but as it has received 
a word of God. Hence good works are no self- 
chosen acts of self-denial or heroism, but they are 
simply the fulfilling of the Ten Commandments. 
In these Commandments, there is comprised for all 
time the full sum of man's duty. They are repeated 
and expanded and expounded by our Lord in the 
Sermon on the Mount, whose aim is particularly to 
present the spiritual side of the Commandments. 
He also sums up the permanent elements of the Ten 
Commandments, of which not a jot or a tittle shall 
pass until ali be fulfilled, Matt. 5:18, in "such sum- 
maries as Matt. 19:18,19; 22 : 37-39. The per- 
fection towards which man is to strive, consists in 



214 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

fulfilling all these. There is nothing more that he 
can do. There are no so-called {C evangelical coun- 
sels,' J whereby man can do more than his duty, and 
acquire merit by so-called ' ' works of superoga- 
tion." When he has done all, he has done no more 
than his duty, and is an unprofitable servant, Luke 
17 : 10. Man cannot, therefore, bind himself by a 
vow to perform what was not incumbent upon him 
before. The vows of poverty, chastity and obedience 
are commendable only if they express duties incum- 
bent upon the person without the vows, but which 
he fully acknowledges through the vows. All 
the works of the Ten Commandments are, therefore, 
holy ; because they cannot be wrought without the 
Holy Spirit, and, because through them all, God is 
glorified. The ordinary are no less holy than the 
extraordinary duties. The most menial offices of the 
humblest men are equally holy with those which are 
occupied with the peculiar exercises of religion. 
The ' i religious life ' ' of the great mass of Christian 
people necessarily becomes chiefly that of providing 
for and attending to very insignificant things, the 
details of a trade, the cares of a family, the toil and 
worry of housekeeping, obedience to a master or 
magistrate. To disparage or forsake these works 
for others of imagined superior holiness, not in- 
cluded in God's Commandments, is to forsake the 
path of good works. This must be constantly 
brought into prominence, against the assumptions 
of monastic holiness, as well as against tendencies 



GOOD WORKS. 215 

prevalent in what seems the most opposite extreme 
within Protestantism. 61 

There is probably no place where the treatment 
of doctrine has to be more carefully guarded, than 
in enforcing the duty of good works. That it is a 
most important part of the preaching of the Christian 
minister is manifest from Tit. 3:8: ' ' I will that 
thou affirm constant^ that the}', which have believed 
in God, might be careful to maintain good works." 
The danger lies in so enforcing this duty, that the 
doctrine of Justification by faith alone is obscured. 
This danger is avoided, when it is clearly taught 
that the necessity for good works, arises not from 
the necessity for salvation, since neither salvation, 
nor continuance in a state leading to salvation 
depends upon man's good works, but from the fact, 
that it belongs to the nature of the Christian to per- 
form good works, just as it belongs to the nature of 
the sun to shine, or of fire to burn. 62 So far as the 
processes of grace have pervaded his nature, he is 
thankful for every opportunity of becoming a 
co-worker with God, just as an affectionate child 
cannot aid soon enough in the occupations of his 
parents, and even the plays of childhood foreshadow 
coming duties. The Law is declared to the child of 
God, as the will of that Father, in doing whose will 
he finds his chief delight. " Ours teach that it is 
necessary to do good works, not that we may trust, 
that we deserve grace by them, but because it is the 
will of God that we should do them' ' {Augsburg Con- 



216 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

fession, Art. XX). Nothing that God has com- 
manded will be regarded by His child as unnecessary. 
Nor will anything be so regarded, in which he has 
the assurance that God delights. The debt of grati- 
tude which he owes God, for his creation and redemp- 
tion, his regeneration and justification, will ever find 
in good works acknowledgment and expression. He 
recognizes in good w r orks a part of the chain of 
instrumentalities, whereby God is conducting him 
towards the ultimate attainment of the full fruits of 
Redemption. For the end of Redemption was not 
only Justification, but also that " He might purify 
unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good 
works, " Tit. 2 : 14. Indifference concerning them 
must be regarded as indicating either the entire 
absence of faith, or the presence of a spiritual disease 
weakening faith, and threatening the near approach 
of spiritual death. 

Nevertheless, even at best, since Sanctification 
is in this life incomplete, there are no absolutely 
good works. The best w T orks of the best men are 
stained by sin. No one can point to any single act of 
obedience and exclaim : ' ' That at least was rendered 
with absolute perfection.' ' We must pray for the 
forgiveness of even our best efforts. So far as w r orks 
are good, they are such because of the presence and 
activity, within man, of the Holy Spirit. Hence 
they are called the fruits of the Spirit, Gal. 5 : 22, 23, 
and only as such are pleasing to God. How little 
merit can they have for man, when all of them that 



GOOD WORKS, 217 

is good, comes from the Holy Spirit ! 

But while good works have no merit, they have 
their rewards. In maintaining and teaching that 
salvation is all of grace, and that man is forgiven his 
sins and admitted into everlasting life, solely because 
of what Christ has done for him, we must be careful 
not to exclude the most clear and emphatic teaching 
of Holy Scripture, that there are rewards, both in 
this life and the life to come, promised to good w r orks. 
These rewards, however, are not of merit; but of 
God's free grace. No work receives a reward because 
it actually deserves it, but only because God has 
promised it. A child owes implicit obedience to his 
father, and merits no reward for the performance of 
what is only plain and simple duty. But a father 
may graciously attach a reward to the child's faith- 
ful performance of a duty. The boy is told that 
when he reaches a certain grade in his class, he shall 
have a book or a watch. Clear as though it is his 
duty to strive for this grade, without the faintest 
hope of reward, w r hen the child has complied with 
the conditions, the reward is given, not because the 
child has properly earned it, but because the father 
has bound himself by the promise of a gracious gift. 
So the rewards offered by God are simply gifts of 
grace w T hich He has conditioned upon the regenerate 
man's compliance with certain requirements. 

The forgiveness of sins is no such reward. Nor 
is eternal life. The rewards mentioned are certain 
blessings within the sphere of forgiveness and eternal 



218 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

life, bestowed upon those who have already been 
gratuitously justified in Christ. No one but one 
who has been justified, without regard to his own 
merits or works, can be entitled to such rewards; 
since no one but one already justified, has the Holy 
Spirit dwelling within hirn, through whose influence 
alone such works are possible. Among the justified, 
therefore, there will be a difference in everlasting 
life, proportioned to different degrees of fidelity in 
this life. One star will differ from another star in 
glory. Some will be nearer the throne of God than 
others, although even the one nearest the throne will 
never cease to admire and praise the grace of God, 
which instead of casting him to the lowest Hell, has 
elevated him to reign with God forever. Not the 
least wonderful of all is it, that the Holy Spirit 
should work within us God's good pleasure, and 
then that God should rew 7 ard man for what is really 
the fruit of the activity of the Holy Spirit, and of 
Christ living in man, and working through man. 
Thus " God crowns His own gifts within us." He 
bestows a gift, and then rewards us for the posses- 
sion and use of this gift. 63 (Isaiah 26 : 12.) 



CHAPTER XXVII. 



GLORIFICATION. 



Glorifying, is only the continuance of the Sancti- 
fying Grace of the Holy Spirit. Sanctification is 
incipient Glorification, The transfer to Heaven 
will occasion far less of a break than is generally 
imagined. Glorification is simply another stage in 
the development within man of the Kingdom of 
God, which was implanted in Regeneration, and 
continued in Sanctification. While Regeneration 
was a purely internal, and Justification a purely 
external, and Sanctification both an internal and an 
external act of God, Glorification is the full com- 
pletion of all. It entirely transforms man's charac- 
ter. It thoroughly delivers man from the last 
traces of indwelling sin. It completefy restores the 
image of God, 

But even Glorification has its degrees. The 
eternal world is not one of simple attainment, with- 
out the prospect of progress. When the children of 
God are said to " rest from their labors," it is the 
toil and trouble of this life that are referred to, and 
not the cessation of works of love, or of constant 
progress in ever new enjoyments of the Life Ever- 



220 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

lasting. To be absent from the body is to be present 
with the Lord, 2 Cor. 5 : 8, and to be with Christ in 
Paradise, Luke 23 : 43, and, in this presence, to 
be holy and unspeakably happy. But the state into 
which man is then ushered is one of expectancy of 
still greater blessings. 

All the hopes and aspirations of the New 
Testament are directed towaids the Second Coming 
of Christ, and the Day of Judgment. The state 
between death and the resurrection, unspeakably 
happy as it is to the regenerate, justified and sancti- 
fied children of God, and unspeakably sorrowful to 
those who have departed in unbelief, Luke 16: 23, 
is only the outer court to the joys of Heaven, and 
the miseries of Hell. As the fallen angels are in 
chains reserved for judgment, Jude 5, 6, and the 
devils look forward with anguish to their time of 
torment, Matt. 8 : 29, so faith looks forward to the 
resurrection of the body and the blessings promised 
to the soul, when there shall be restored to it the 
organ of its connection with the outward world, 
for the full consummation of its bliss. 

It is at the appearing of Christ, that the child- 
ren of God, seeing Him as He is, shall be made like 
Him, 1 John 3:2. This means both that their 
admission to the unobscured sight of Christ shall 
mark a higher stage of their transformation into 
His image, and also that the likeness of Christ that 
has already been begun in them, will give them as 
never before, the faculty to see and know Christ. 



GL 0R1FICA TION. 22 1 

To the latter, belongs the adage : " Some things we 
must know in order to love, and others we must 
love, in order to know." May we not expect that 
the believer's likeness to Christ, and his sight of 
Christ will act upon each other reciprocally through- 
out all Eternity? With man's constantly expand- 
ing capacity to know and love and admire, there 
will be incessant revelations of what Christ, and of 
what God in Christ is ; and with every new revela- 
tion, there will be the development within man of 
new capacities for knowing and loving and admiring. 
Thus, while the negative side of holiness, freedom 
from sin, is complete with his entrance into 
another world, its positive side, or the ever-increasing 
growth of capacities for new bestowals of grace ever 
advances. 

The rewards in Everlasting Life are not assigned 
until the Day of Judgment. With death, all have 
entered into bliss, but the distinctions are not re- 
vealed to us, as occurring until all are judged for 
the things done in the body, whether they be good 
or bad. The Judgment- Day does not settle to the 
child of God the question of his forgiveness, or his 
righteousness in Christ, but it does decide his rela- 
tive position among the forgiven, as high or low, 
according to his use of the opportunities God has 
given him. They that turn many to righteousness, 
shall shine as the stars forever and ever, Dan. 12:3. 
Not until the close of the present order, and the 
Judgment-Day, can the account of each soul be com- 



222 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

plete, since it is only then that its words and 
works shall cease to bring forth on earth fruit unto 
everlasting life. Men depart this life, but the influ- 
ences they have started continue in ever-widening 
circles until the end of time. The lips or the 
fingers have crumbled to dust centuries ago, but 
the words they have spoken or written have been 
caught up by other witnesses, and make their 
record, for the final reckoning, in God's Book 
of Remembrance. Others reap the fruit in this life, 
but on the Judgment-Day every seed that has been 
planted will bear its fruit to the one who has 
planted it. 

The glorified will be endowed with resurrection 
bodies. These are not as etherial, and unlike 
those which we have now, as is often supposed. 
They are not new bodies, but the very same bodies, 
only endowed, like our Lord's resurrection body, 
with new properties. It is not necessary to the 
identity of these bodies with those we now have, 
that the identity of the atoms of matter of which 
they are composed be maintained. As the body of 
the aged man is the same as that which he had in 
his infancy, while all its particles have been repeat- 
edly changed, so with the resurrection body. The 
requisites of identity in the one case must not be 
made more rigid than in the other. The identity 
of cur bodies in the present state does not lie even 
in the succession of particles of matter, but in the 
permanent impress which the soul has made upon 



GL ORIFICA TION. 223 

the body, so that the hod}- correctly expresses the 
soul, and continues its organ. But while this is all 
that is necessary for the preservation of identity, it is 
not for us to determine the limits of God's Omni- 
potence in the resurrection, or to say that God will 
do no more than the very least that is necessary to 
maintain this identity. It is enough for us to know 
that God will give it a body, as it pleases Him, that 
they that are ' ' in their graves will hear the voice of 
the Son of God and shall come forth," 1 Cor. 15 : 
38 ; John 5 : 2S ; Dan. 12:2, and that the body 
that was raised w T ill be identical with that which 
was committed to the earth. These bodies will be 
spiritual, because freed from the dominion of sin, 
opposing no obstacles to the Holy Spirit, and en- 
dowed with new spiritual properties. The eye will 
have new capacities of sight, and the ear new 
capacities for hearing, and ever} 7 organ be adjusted 
to the new sphere in which the glorified man is to 
move and act. 

The complete annihilation of the earth has been 
taught upon the basis of 2 Pet. 3: 12: ''The 
heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the 
elements shall melt with fervent heat." But that 
this inference is not justified is clear, since it is now 
established that fire destroys, only by changing form 
and, by releasing elements from their former com- 
binations, so as to produce new ones. The "new 7 
heavens and new earth' * may mean no more than 
the "new heart" wdiich is given in Sanctification, 



224 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

As the latter refers to the old heart endowed with 
new properties, so the earth itself under the fires of 
the Last Day, may be subjected to a change similar 
to that which the body of the believer will receive, 
so that the glorified man will live on a glorified 
earth. The interpretation formerly current was a 
mere guess, which may be true, but is not a matter 
of revelation. 

Among the many questions connected with the 
glorified state, none is often fraught with more con- 
cern than that of the heavenly recognition. It is 
inconceivable why this should be doubted. The 
story of the rich man and Lazarus clearly teaches it. 
The immediate recognition of Moses and Elias, 
while they conversed with our Lord on the Mount, 
shows the higher faculties for recognition with which 
the Apostles were endowed when raised above this 
earthly sphere. There is only one reason why the 
heavenly recognition has been doubted, and that is the 
apprehension that friends closely connected with us in 
this life may be missing, and that the knowledge of 
their eternal misery may disturb the happiness of the 
glorified. But in all this, the nature and purpose 
of our earthly affections are forgotten. They are 
implanted for purely earthly ends, in order that, to 
the close of his life, the wanderer may be followed 
by the entreaties of friends, and the prayers that God 
may bring him to repentance. But when the decision 
against God has been made with such persistency 
that, notwithstanding all the means which God has 



if 



GL ORIFICA TION. 225 

exerted, he dies unrepentant, God's pity for him 
ceases. The love that gave the Son of God to death 
for the wanderer's sins, is turned to eternal wrath. 
So in the complete Sanctification of every child of 
God, all purely earthly affections are removed. 
The glorified soul loves only what God loves, and 
hates all that God hates. So entirely is his will in 
harmony with God's will, that we cannot conceive 
otherwise, than that anything that God wills will be 
cheerfully acquiesced in. If an Apostle was willing 
that he himself should be accursed, in order that 
the progress of the Gospel might be advanced, no 
other calamity connected with the development of 
God's purposes could be regarded an evil. 

They who dwell on this side of the heavenly 
recognition, deprive themselves of its most consola- 
tory features. The prospect of the bliss of Heaven 
is increased by the anticipation of the presence of 
those with whom we will be reunited. There the 
mother will find her long-lost child ; there children 
will rejoice in the fellowship of departed parents ; 
there the family circle, once broken, will again be 
completed, except for those, for whose reclamation 
the utmost efforts were unavailing. There we will 
see at length and hold delightful intercourse with 
all the good and great who have preceded us. The 
long line of faithful witnesses to the truth, to whose 
efforts we owe our salvation, will be recognized and 
intimately known. Every one who has brought a 
sinner to Christ will have his seals of rejoicing before 



226 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

him. There the wounds of earth will be healed, 
and the divisions which separated children of God 
on earth will be removed, and those who misunder- 
stood and contended against one another, thoroughly 
united, with one heart and one mind, shall converse 
and celebrate the common praises of their one Lord 
and Master. There will be one fold and one Shep- 
herd. All shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac 
and Jacob. We have a glimpse of this in Heb. 1 2 : 
22, 23 : "Ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto 
the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, 
and to innumerable hosts of angels, to the General 
Assembly and Church of the First-Born, who are en- 
rolled in Heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and 
to the spirits of just men made perfect and to Jesus 
the Mediator of a new covenant/' 



PART V. 

THE ADMINISTRATION OF 
REDEMPTION. 



227 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



THE CHURCH. 



The doctrines of the Church and the Ministry 
have been reserved for the last place in this treat- 
ment, since they cannot be properly understood until 
we have the entire Plan of Salvation in full view, 
and the relations of the other doctrines to one 
another have been established. In the Xew Testa- 
ment, the word, Church, occurs only three times 
in the Gospels, but over one hundred times in the 
books that succeed them, 

All that has thus far been described may be 
summed up under the heads of Redemption, Regen- 
eration, Justification, Sanctification, Glorification, 
and the Word and Sacraments as the means by 
which Redemption is applied, and these acts of 
divine grace are wrought. But in order that the 
Word and Sacraments may be brought to men, there 
is need of those who shall administer them. God 
neither immediate!}' gives the means of grace (for 
why then, should there be means of grace ?), nor does 
He only and sporadically and occasionally com- 
municate them to individuals, but He has arranged 
a system of agencies for this purpose. It is one of 



230 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

the details in the vast and most complete and 
minute organization of His Kingdom. Everything 
in this Kingdom centers around Redemption, and is 
directed towards its saving application. For the 
purpose, therefore, of bringing the Word and Sacra- 
ments to men, God has instituted His Church upon 
earth . 

Of necessity, the Church, as seen by God, and 
as seen by even the holiest of men, presents a very 
diverse form. In reality, the Church is a body com- 
posed of all who believe in Christ, in all lands and 
ages, organically united with one another by an 
unseen bond, and subordinated one to another, in 
working out a foreseen divine purpose. No one but 
He who has planned this purpose and chosen His 
instruments and fitted each one for His peculiar 
work, knows thoroughly this organism. Its unity 
lies in the divine mind and will. The unity of an 
army lies in the creative skill of its General, who 
has thoroughly organized, equipped and provisioned 
it, and causes the movement of each corps and 
division and brigade and regiment and compa^^ and 
soldier to converge upon a certain end, that may be 
hundreds of miles or months distant from the place 
and moment of present activity. The individual 
soldier, or even the subordinate General is probably 
in entire ignorance of all that pertains to any other 
part of the field than that which is given him to 
occupy. It is not for him to plan the campaign, 
but simply to be faithful in discharging his duty in 



THE CHURCH. 231 

that particular sphere which he is charged wilj 
maintaining. It is not for him to be discoursed, 
because of a repulse which his Commander has tore- 
seen and determined to allow, in order to influence 
the ultimate issue at a remote part ; or to be elated, 
as though the war were over, when his company has 
been victor in a skirmish. We see only a very small 
part of the field, stretching through centuries until 
the end of time, and encircling the whole globe. In 
a complicated piece of machinery, each pin and cog 
and rivet has its influence on the work to be done, 
but who can understand it until the whole be sur- 
veyed ? 

So the Church has been described by God. This 
is the thought that underlies the discussion in the 
Twelfth Chapter of First Corinthians, where the 
Church is represented as the Body of Christ, and 
every child of God as a member of this Body. But 
the members differ. They cannot all be the same, 
if God's purpose is to be subserved. Inherently 
equal, they are organically unequal. They are sub- 
ordinated to one another for the attainment of the 
result. The body cannot be all head, or eye, or ear. 
Christians are members one of another. There is 
among them such a community of interests, that the 
benefit of one is the benefit of all, and the injury of 
one is the injury of all. Nor does this pertain only 
to those who are known to one another, and recog- 
nize each other as members of the same Body of 
Christ, but it comprehends all who belong to Christ, 



232 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

Each particular form of Christianity, however im- 
perfect and defective it may appear, has its peculiar 
mission for the good of the whole, and of every 
individual belonging thereto. No gain can be made 
in any direction by any body of Christians, or by 
any individual among them, that does not become 
the common gain of the entire brotherhood of Christ, 
now and hereafter ; nor can any injury befall them, 
that is not co-extensive with the entire compass of 
the Christian Church. 

The Reformers only gave prominency to this 
doctrine, when they taught that, in the Apostles' 
Creed, the clause, "the communion of saints," 
must be understood, as an appositive of " the Holy 
Christian Church," 64 By this, they meant that the 
Church is not, properly speaking, the external 
organization, which, by a well-known figure of 
speech, is called by that name, but that it is the 
sum of all believing children of God throughout the 
entire world, who are united by an invisible bond. 
All members of this community, however separated, 
have common interests. No one possesses any 
honor or privilege as his own exclusive property, 
but whatever he has and is and does, pertains to the 
profit of the entire body of believers everywhere. 
No one can offer a single prayer, either for himself, 
or for any other member of the community, with- 
out, in this prayer, praying also for all its other 
members. They cannot be isolated or separated 
from one another. The common interests that all 



THE CHURCH. 233 

have are not denied or ignored, but are only enforced 
by defining the Church as the communion of saints. 
As the edification of believers occurs through 
Word and Sacraments, the Church necessarily 
assumes an outward and visible form. It has a 
body as well as a soul. Wherever there is faith 
in Christ, it inevitably expresses itself. The faith 
is confessed, Rom. 10 : 10. But while thus, the faith 
is regularly and normally brought to confession, the 
confession of faith is often falsely made, Matt. 7:22. 
We cannot reverse our statement and say that, 
wherever there is confession, there is faith. The 
unbelieving are not true members of the Church, but 
are only externally connected with it, like the 
withered branches on the living vine, John 15:6. 
So far as their confession and teaching of the Word 
are correct, they are members of the Church extern- 
ally, but not internally. All that pertains to the 
external side of the Church's offices, they properly 
perform. God's ordinances lose none of their valid- 
ity, because of the inner unbelief and hypocrisy of 
those through whom He administers them. They 
act only as the hands or organs of the Church, and 
the Church acts only as the divinely -appointed 
bearer of God's never inefficacious Word and Sacra- 
ments. Even though some be false, wherever God's 
Word is purely preached, there are some of God's 
people. Although the great mass may reject it, or 
be hypocritical, yet some fruit is ever borne, Isaiah 
55:10,11. When we say that the Church is where- 



234 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

ever the Word is purely preached, we mean that 
there are always, in such assembly, some truly 
believing children of God, 

This is what is understood when the pure 
preaching of the Word, and the right administration 
of the Sacraments are said to be the marks of the 
Church. The "preaching " means here the public 
teaching in the congregations, and otherwise through 
its official representatives. It is not confined to the 
sermons, but refers still more emphatically to 
the more permanent teaching, in the Church's 
doctrinal and devotional hand-books, in her 
approved journals and books, in the judgments of 
her theological Faculties, and carefully formulated 
decisions of her Synods and General Bodies. Nor is 
it affirmed that whete the preaching is deficient 
in purity, it is absolutely destitute of efficacy. There 
are degrees of purity ; and we cannot determine 
how small the amount of truth may be, through 
which God exerts His saving power. The purer 
the truth, however, the greater the assurance that 
through it truly believing children of God are born 
and nourished unto everlasting life. The same 
principle applies to the right administration of the 
Sacraments. 

The efficacy of Word and Sacraments, as we 
have previously seen, is not dependent upon the 
correct relation of the administration to the external 
organization in which the Church has arranged for 
her work. They have an inherent efficacy both 



THE CHURCH, 235 

from the truth which they proclaim, and from the 
abiding and ever active presence within them of the 
Holy Spirit. It matters not what may be the instru- 
mentality that conveys them ; they are equally 
powerful. There ma} 7 be regular and irregular ways 
of conveying water ; but w T ater is always water, and 
is quickening and refreshing however it be con- 
veyed. The effect of the medicine is not dependent 
upon its prescription by a regular physician. The 
same prescription has precisely the same effect, even 
though it should come from a layman in medicine. 
Our Lord Himself warned His Disciples of false 
inferences in this particular, Luke 9 : 49. 

But the opposite extreme must be carefully 
guarded against. The efficacy of the Word, even 
when administered in an irregular way, is no justifi- 
cation for carelessness and indifference concerning 
the regular order. Men sin in despising and break- 
ing through a regular order, even though, notwith- 
standing their irregularity, their efforts may not be 
without marks of God's blessing. In the external 
regulations, connected with the preaching of His 
Word and the administration of His Sacraments, 
God has established an order, that is organized after 
the pattern of the invisible organization of the 
Church, as the Body of Christ, In this external, as 
well as in the internal organization, there is a sub- 
ordination to one another of those who are in other 
respects equal before God. It is this order which is 
defined in the Fourth Commandment. Before God, 



236 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

as persons, the father and the child are in all respects 
equal ; but, because of God's arrangement for carry- 
ing out His purposes in the organization of the 
family, they assume another relation, and the son, 
in obeying his father, obeys not a man who, like 
him, is a creature of God, redeemed by Christ, but 
obeys God who has instituted this order. There is 
every difference between the father as a man, and 
the father as God's agent and representative in his 
headship of the family. 

So in the Church. A mode of organization, 
and form of procedure which in itself, has just as 
much validity and justification as another, may, 
because of its relations to the order which has 
become fixed, become wrong and sinful. Every 
street corner is equally holy, as a spot for the erec- 
tion of a House of God ; but when they to whom 
the decision belongs have determined upon the pre- 
cise spot, the minority must have some better justifi- 
cation for building elsewhere than that of the equal 
sanctity of some other place. No organization can 
exist for any length of time, where there are not 
rules, according to which in things which are in 
themselves indifferent, the members agree to sub- 
ordinate the exercise of their Christian liberty to the 
good of the whole body. These rules cannot be 
violated at will, but are binding upon the conscience, 
until there is connected with their observance the 
violation of some plain law of God. Even where 
there is no written law, the unwritten law is in force, 



THE CHURCH. 237 

and dare not be set aside at pleasure. While where- 
ever two or three believers are, there is the Church, 
yet this gives no encouragement to the formation of 
an independent congregation, on the part of those 
who may be dissatisfied with some features of the 
congregation to which they have belonged. The 
authority inherent in the two or three believers can 
be claimed as a justification, only when the original 
organization has been used to the prejudice of the 
pure preaching of the Word and the right adminis- 
tration of the Sacraments. 

We cannot reproduce in the Nineteenth Century 
all the details of the Church organization of the 
Eighteenth, Seventeenth, Sixteenth, Fifteenth Cen- 
turies, much less that of the Nicene period, or even 
of the Apostolic age, for the simple reason that we 
are not living in any other century than the Nine- 
teenth, and that our age is very remote from that of 
the Apostles. We cannot, therefore, be justified in 
any attempt to break with a settled order, for the 
purpose, by purging it from post- Apostolic additions, 
of returning to Apostolic simplicity. This would 
be a denial of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the 
Church during the period in which He has promised 
in an especial way to be with it, and to lead it into all 
truth. The Apostolic Church was only the germ in 
doctrine, in life, in worship, in government, of that 
w T hich was to follow. Everything that was added, 
in the way of true and legitimate development, is a 
permanent possession of the Church, which cannot 



238 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

be renounced, unless abused for the purpose of 
defeating the very end for which the Church has 
been organized. 

Hezekiah had the courage, when the brazen 
serpent became an object of idolatry, to call it 
Nehustan, and to break it in pieces. So in the 
Sixteenth Century, when the organization of the 
Church was diverted from its proper sphere of teach- 
ing the saving doctrines of the Gospel, and the 
diocesan bishops refused to ordain men for the minis- 
try in the congregations that protested against the 
corrupt teaching, there was no other alternative 
than for the congregations to claim the power that 
belonged to them inherently, and to repudiate the 
authority that repudiated God's Word. But other- 
wise a break with the organization which had grad- 
ually grown through the centuries, would have been 
wrong. A schism occurs, wherever there is a dis- 
ruption of the Church's organization for any other 
reason, than that of notorious impurity in the 
teaching, that has prevailed, and that has not been 
remedied, after repeated and patient efforts to have 
it corrected. With all the emphasis we very 
properly place upon unity in the faith as subordinate 
to union in organization, we should not close our 
eyes to the sinfulness of schism, or attempt to justify 
divisions for any other cause, than for that of fidelity 
to our testimony to all the counsel of God. Christians 
are commanded to obey those who have the rule 
over them, and to submit themselves, Heb. 13 : 17, 



THE CHURCH. 239 

and thus there belongs to that government, which 
provides for spiritual things, the command to "sub- 
mit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the 
Lord's sake/' 1 Peter 2 : 13. The problem of Church 
Union will be solved only by holding firmly to the 
pure faith of the Gospel, once delivered to the saints, 
and heartily uniting with all who upon the basis of 
this pure faith, and for the sake of advancing this 
pure faith, thankfully accept and appropriate every- 
thing developed in the Church's experience, that is 
not contrary to God's Word. With purity of teach- 
ing guaranteed, in other respects the rule applies : 
' ' Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear 
of God," Eph. 5 :2i. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 



THE MINISTRY. 



To the Church belongs the institution of the 
Christian Ministry. This is not an institution 
above or alongside of the Church, but it is an 
arrangement whereby the Church is furnished with 
those, through whom it is to discharge the duties 
with which it has been entrusted. For administra- 
tion, hands are always necessary. The Ministry 
are the Church's hands. For the power of the keys, 
i. e. , the power to absolve from sins and to retain 
them, has been committed not to an order or class 
of men, but to the entire Church. The responsi- 
bility of providing for the administration of Word and 
Sacraments belongs likewise to the entire Church. 
This does not imply, however, that the Power of 
the Keys, and the administration of Word and 
Sacraments, belong to every member of the Church. 
They belong to the Church in its entirety, and then 
to an office, as the organ through which the Church 
acts. 

The spiritual priesthood of all believers, and 
the ministerial office must always be carefully dis- 
tinguished. The spiritual priesthood invests every 



THE MIX IS FRY. 241 

believer with the right to approach God directly 
without the intervention of an)' other priest, but the 
great High Priest of our profession, the Son of God 
Himself, the only Mediator between God and man. 
It has its sacrifices to offer, but they are not pro- 
pitiatory, for there is but one such, viz., the sacrifice 
made by Christ, once for all on the altar of the 
Cress, Heb. 9 : 28. They are eucharistic sacrifices, 
the spiritual sacrifices of prayer, praise and thanks- 
giving, 1 Pet. 2:5; Rom. 12 : 1. But the Ministry 
is in no sense a priesthood. Hence, no argument 
can be derived from the spiritual priesthood to 
prove that the duties of the Ministry belong inher- 
ently to all the members of the Church, and that, 
for the sake of good order they are transferred to 
those set apart to this office. The Ministry does not 
belong to individual Christians, but to the Church 
in its collective capacity. The members of the 
Church have a voice only in deciding who shall be 
set apart to the office. 

The voice of the people in the election of their 
pastor, and in the ordination of men to the Ministry 
by the action of their representatives, does not, 
however, make the minister dependent upon their 
will in the administration of the means of grace. 
He is not simply the representative of the people ; 
he is also the representative of God , charged with 
the teaching of nothing but God's Word, and with 
the administration of the sacraments in no other 
way than as God has ordained. When he acts as a 



242 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

hand of a Christian congregation, it is only to do 
the work with which that congregation is charged 
by God. They have chosen him as their spiritual 
teacher. He is to declare to them all the counsel 
of God, whether men will hear or forbear. He 
dare not add anything to God's Word, or take any- 
thing from it. He must follow the written instruc- 
tions, recorded in the Holy Scriptures, as rigidly 
as an ambassador must be guided in all things by 
the State Department of the government for which 
he acts. He must be independent of all the preju- 
dices and influence of his people, when he applies 
the Word of God to any particular case, as a man, 
who acts upon a jury, to be true to his oath to 
render a verdict according to the law and the facts, 
must be blind to every communication which per- 
sons in the court-room may attempt for the purpose 
of affecting the result. The Church has called him 
to the position, in which it is his constant duty to 
render nothing but an unprejudiced judgment. He 
must rebuke the erring, warn the tempted, denounce 
the openly wicked, and withhold the sacraments 
from those to whom they bring no benefit, with- 
out regard to what any member or a majority of 
members may say. He cannot, in this respect, 
transfer his responsibility even to his Church Council. 
The ultimate decision in the administration of the 
sacraments belongs not to them, but to him as their 
minister, Where a conflict arises, he can resign 
and cease to be their pastor, but he cannot perform 



THE MINISTRY. 243 

any ministerial act which he believes is not in 
accordance with God's Word and will, Gal. 1 : 10. 
For should he do so, he would cease to be a minister 
of the Gospel, and an ambassador for Christ, 1 Cor. 

4: 1-3- 

This does not relieve the congregation of its 
responsibility, or place the Ministry above the 
criticism of the people. The ministry must not be 
regarded the conscience of the laity. The minister 
is responsible not only to God, but to his congrega- 
tion, and to all within whose fellowship he stands 
for the discharge of the duties of his office according 
to the Word of God. The Holy Scriptures are in 
the hands of his people, and they are to be un- 
wearied in the comparison of his teaching with this 
unerring rule, Acts 17 : 11. With him, they are to 
confer concerning aught that may seem to them 
inconsistent with its pure teaching. Nor are they 
to be silent, when after repeated conversations, they 
find his teaching unscriptural. There is always a 
regular order of procedure by which such faults 
may be remedied. But, notwithstanding this, as 
long as he remains pastor, the responsibility for 
what is taught, and for the right administration of 
the sacraments remains with him. 

All ministers are intrinsically equal. The parity 
of ministers rests upon the fact that all are equally 
entrusted with the same Word and the same sacra- 
ments, whose administration is equally accompanied 
by the Holy Spirit. This, however, does not inter- 



244 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

fere with the subordination of one to the other for 
the sake of expediency in the more comprehensive 
spheres of Church organization. One can readily 
become in this way, primus inter pares , the first 
among equals. While, therefore, the teaching that 
there are different orders in the Ministry by divine 
right, is incorrect, such orders by human right, 
would not be wrong in the Church, but must occur 
wherever the organization of the Church to any 
great extent occurs. Organization, the Church, as 
a human societ} r , must have, and such organization 
implies the existence of diverse offices. The New 
Testament bishops and presbyters or elders, accord- 
ing to the acknowledgement of even decided advo- 
cates of diocesan episcopacy, are entirely synony- 
mous. 6 5 But the subsequent diocesan episcopacy, 
with the theory of Apostolical succession eliminated, 
lies at the basis of forms of Church organization 
perfectly in harmony with New Testament princi- 
ples. Of these, some are episcopal in fact, but not 
in name. Its only rival in any extended scheme of 
organization, is the Presbyterian, which, however, 
is scarcely more than an undeveloped form of an 
Episcopacy, that does not proceed beyond the limits 
prescribed in the New Testament. 

All power in the Church being that of the Word 
and sacraments, it is entirely without jurisdiction 
in secular affairs. It can impose no other than 
purely spiritual penalties. Nevertheless as the 
Church, in carrying on her divinely -given work, can- 



THE MINISTRY. 245 

not dispense with secular arrangements, she has to 
deal with secularities. In this lies the danger of 
her secularization. The array of numbers, of con- 
tributions, of propeily, of perfection of organization, 
etc., may often be interpreted as an evidence of 
spirituality, while, on the other hand, it may 
only hide a very lamentable degree of spiritual 
poverty. The Church is strong, as it confesses 
clearly, plainly and unwaveringly the whole Word 
of God ; it is weak, as it places reliance upon any 
other means than this for conquering the w 7 orld. 

The Church has a varied lot in this world ; but 
there is no danger, that it will ever become extinct. 
The promise is that however threatening the assaults 
of her enemies, " God is in her midst ; she shall not 
be moved. God shall help her and that right 
early," Ps. 46 : 5. Built upon a rock, "the gates 
of Hell shall not prevail against it," Matt. 16 : 18. 
The Gospel is to be preached among all nations, 
and to every creature ; and wherever the Gospel is 
preached, baptism is to attend it. The Lord's Sup- 
per is to be administered until Christ's return, 
1 Cor. 11 : 26. In alternate light and shade, the 
Church advances towards its final triumph. The 
good and the evil grow together until the end, the 
good becoming better, and the evil worse. Every 
now and then, an hour of conflict comes, and the 
blood of martyrs flows. The result is alwa}^s a 
victory, but not permanent peace. Every out- 
breaking error and heresy precipitates a controversy, 



246 ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. 

and a new gain for the Church. Yet the goal is 
not here, but beyond. The believing child of the 
Church is not indifferent to its future on the earth. 
He does all he can for its prosperity while he lives 
here, and for its perpetuity and diffusion after he has 
gone. But beyond this, he rejoices from afar in the 
clear vision, granted faith, of the Church Triumphant. 
Upon these his thoughts dwell, and towards them 
all his aspirations turn. For his citizenship is in 
Heaven. In the Church Triumphant, the Kingdom 
of God attains its ultimate goal. Redemption then 
will be not only fully appropriated by believers, but 
appropriated Redemption will be completely actual- 
ized. "The tabernacle of God is with men, and 
He will dwell with them, and they shall be His 
people, and God Himself shall be with them, and 
be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears 
from their eyes ; and there shall be no more death, 
neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be 
any more pain : for the former things are passed 
away/' Rev. 21 : 3, 4. 



APPENDIX. 



NOT6S, 



Note i, Page 13. 

The modern Science of Religions, in its attempt to trace 
the development of religion from its lowest form of Nature 
worship to Polytheism, and then to Monotheism, is correct 
in so far as it begins with a stage of Atheism into which 
certain races had deteriorated by the process described in 
Rom. 1. They are not permitted to remain in forgetfulness 
of God. He ever asserts Himself, and hence, though strug- 
gling against His voice, they are borne upward by the very 
necessity of reflection upon themselves towards the Mono- 
theism from which they had departed, and towards the true 
knowledge of God which must come by a new revelation. 
Man's powers can never reach the central truths of religion 
by reasoning. But he may thereby be prepared for them. 

Note 2, Page 13. 
"This is the crowning guilt of men, that they will not 
recognize One, of whom they cannot possibly be ignorant 
* * Though under the oppressive bondage of the body, 
though led astray by depraving customs, though enervated 
by lusts and passions, though in slavery to false gods ; yet, 
whenever the soul comes to itself, as out of a surfeit, or a 



243 APPENDIX. 

sleep, or a sickness, and attains something of its natural 
soundness, it speaks of God. ' ' TmLTui^z,! an fApologeticuSyQ 17. 

Note 3, Pagb 31. 

Hou,azius : Distinguendum est inter perspicuitatem 
verborum et evidentiam (stricte dictam) rerum. Res 
potissimae in sacris literis comprehensae sunt inevidentes ; 
sunt enim mysteria, quae nee immediate apprehensis ter- 
minis, nee ex aliis naturaliter evidentibus principiis cognosci 
possunt. Proinde clara dicitur scriptura sacra non ratione 
rerum, sed verborum ; quia res inevidentes etiam claris et 
perspicuis verbis proponi possunt, (Prolegomena, III, q., 46.) 

Note 4, Page 31. 
A four- fold sense of Holy Scripture was taught through- 
out the scholastic period, viz. : a literal and a three-fold 
spiritual sense, viz. : the allegorical^ when some external 
object or action is emblematic of something pertaining to 
Christ and the Church ; the morale when what pertains to 
Christ and the Church is significative of what we ought to 
do, and the anagogical, as they point forward to what is 
beyond in eternal glory. Hence the verses : 

Littera gesta docet ; quid credas allegoria ; 

Moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia. 
The allegorical interpretation, at first probably well-meant, 
and, proceeding from the desire to find Christ everywhere, 
soon prevailed over the literal, and made of Scripture a col- 
lection of documents written in cipher, which only those 
who had the key could understand. From a compilation 
of such interpretations published by John Zainer, Reutlin- 
gen, 1474, in library of Seminary at Mount Airy, we give a 
few examples. Thus on Genesis 1 : M Light is faith. The 
firmament is hope. The waters above the firmament are 
tribulations sent by God. The waters under the firmament 
are temptations arising from the flesh. The earth is the 
body. Grass and trees are good works. Fruits and seeds 



APPENDIX. 249 

are virtues and merits. The lights signify discretion ; the 
sun, the wisdom, and the moon, the knowledge of eternal 
things. The fishes in the water signify devotions, and the 
birds the contemplations of heavenly things. Cattle mean 
assistance given to the poor, and reptiles suffering of the 
grief of others," etc. Then follows the moral application, 
how the light of faith ought to illumine the mind, and hope 
to stand as an immovable bulwark between the waters of 
tribulations from above, and those of temptation from be- 
low, and dry land to appear by self-denial from carnal lusts, 
and the luminaries of wisdom and knowledge to be ever 
brightly burning, and the watchfulness of fishes and the ac- 
tivity and sublime flight of birds, etc., to be ever present. 
Following this is the anagogical interpretation. Light is 
the angelic nature. The waters above and beneath are the 
saints in heaven and on earth. The firmament is the pre- 
lacy interceding between God and men. Green grass refers 
to ordinary Christians. Fruitful trees, those especially ac- 
tive among the laity. Shining stars, the clergy and doctors. 
Fishes of the sea, devout ; and birds of the air, contempla- 
tive men. The sun, is Christ, and the moon the Virgin 
Mary. The dry ground, the abstinent, contrite and peni- 
tent. The cattle are those who give alms ; the reptiles, who 
creep on the earth, are farmers : and the beasts of the field 
are the nobility. The angel placed at the gate of Paradise 
with the flaming sword is the Pope, to whom is committed 
the guardianship of the earthly paradise, and to whom, 
therefore, belongs the sword to punish transgressors. 

But there is a sense, in which the doctrine of a distinc- 
tion between a literal and a spiritual sense of Scripture does 
not conflict with the assertion that Scripture has but one 
sense. For the understanding of the mere letter of Scripture 
is only a partial knowledge of its one sense ; while the 
spiritual knowledge imparted by the illumination of the 
Holy Spirit alone.leads through the literal to the true sense 
of Scripture. 



250 APPENDIX. 

Note 5, Page 40. 

A classification proposed by a recent American writer is 
worthy of consideration : 

Ontological Attributes : Infinity, Self- Existence, Inde- 
pendence, Unity, Eternity, Immutability, Omnipresence. 
Cosmo logical : Self-Caused, Omnipotence, Etc. Personal: 
Spirituality, Omniscience, Wisdom, Freedom. Moral: 
Holiness, Truth, Righteousness, Goodness. Religious: 
Love. Present Day Theology, by Lewis French Stearns 
(New York : 1893), pp. 13-16. 

Note 6, Page 41. 
Super cuncta, subter cuncta, 
Extra cuncta, intra cuncta, 
Intra cuncta, nee inclusus, 
Extra cuncta, nee exclusus ; 
Super cuncta, nee elatus ; 
Subter cuncta, nee substratus ; 
Super totus, praesidendo ; 
Subter totus, sustinendo ; 
Extra totus, complectendo. 
Intra totus es, implendo. 

— Hii^debERT of Tours (A. D. 1057-1134.) 

Note 7, Page 43. 
Chemnitz, Loci Theologici, I : 36 sq. : " Since the 
Church speaks, in a manner, concerning unknown things, it 
uses these terms also in a somewhat different manner from 
that in which they are commonly employed. If any one 
object that the terms, Essence' and 'person,' are not 
entirely adequate to designate the hidden mystery of the 
Unity and the Trinity, he may be answered in the words of 
Augustine: 'Language labors from its great poverty.' 
Nevertheless, ' three persons ' is employed, not so much 
that this mystery be declared, as that it be not entirely 
ignored." 



APPENDIX. 251 

Cf. Another declaration of Augustine, quoted by 
Chemnitz : "If you cannot find what God is, beware lest 
you think of Him as He is not." 

When it is said that Father and Son and Holy Ghost 
are not distinct persons in the same way that we distinguish 
between human personalities, the differences, between 
human persons having the common human nature, in sub- 
stance, time, will, power and work are separated from our 
conception of the three divine persons ; for, as the Athana- 
sian Creed declares, " In this Trinity, none is before or after 
the other ; none is greater or less than another." 

Note 8, Page 43. 
Phiuppi, Kirchliche Glaubenslehre, II., 144 seq. : "It 
is above all things important for us to understand in what 
sense the Church has used the expression 'person.' If in 
recent times we are accustomed to say, personality is self- 
consciousness and the power of self-determination or free- 
dom, we state what is fundamentally more the manifestation 
than the essence of personality. Personality is only w T here 
there are self-consciousness and freedom, because wherever 
there is personality, it necessarily manifests itself in self- 
consciousness and self-determination, or in freedom. We 
could say that personality is something deeper, lying at the 
foundation of self-consciousness and freedom, viz. : the 
peculiar inner being which is reflected in those two forms 
of manifestation. Personality, in and of itself, is only 
* * that intellectual egoity, which man knows in his self- 
consciousness, and which he expresses, with respect to what 
is without, in his self-determination. In man, especially 
when he has attained complete intellectual development, the 
essence and the manifestation of personality cannot be 
separated ; although in the infant, the egoity is present only 
in the germ, and is not developed, until later, in conscious- 
ness and freedom. But even among adults, what cannot be 
separated in reality, may, nevertheless, be separated in 



252 APPENDIX. 

thought. The ecclesiastical terminology has arisen from 
this possibility of the separation in thought, and it has 
applied the one side, viz. : the inner nature of personality, 
the independent form of subsistence, the egoity, to designate 
the real immanent distinction in the Godhead, while it has 
designated the other side, the form of manifestation of the 
personality, self-consciousness and freedom, as a predicate 
of the one essence of the Godhead. Thus the three persons 
in the Godhead are self-conscious and free subjects, because 
of their participation in the one and self-conscious and free 
Divine Essence, which is manifested in them only in distinct 
and independent forms of subsistence. 

Accordingly if we speak of the personality of God, 
without reflecting upon the immanent Trinitarian distinc- 
tion, we follow the modern definition, which finds person- 
ality in self-consciousn ess and freedom. This terminology is 
constantly justified in opposition to Pantheism, which regards 
Deity not as a conscious and free essence exalted above 
the world, but as the unconscious fundamental force of the 
Universe necessarily working and unfolding itself in the 
world. But if, on the other hand, we speak with the Church 
of the Three Persons in the one Divine Essence, we have 
in view the opposition to Monarchianism and Arianism or 
Tri theism." 

Note 9, Page 44. 
Twesten, Vorlesungen uber Dogmatik, I : 220. 

Note 10, Page 45. 
Phiuppi, I : 163 sqq. 

Note ii, Page 45. 

Sartorius, " The Doctrine, of Divine Love," (Edin- 
burgh translation), pp. 8 sqq. : 

"A subject without an object is as inconceivable as a 
thing without a thought, cr a light which does not give 



APPENDIX. 253 

light. * * Hence, as truly as God is personal love, and 
as truly as there can be no love without one beloved, so 
truly is He both at once the Loving and the Beloved, the 
Father and the Son. * * The Father would not be all 
love, unless the Son as His essential image were entirely 
His equal, unless all that was His, were also, without being 
thereby doubled, the Son's also ( John 17 : 10), but with the 
distinction which must be well borne in mind, that all that 
the 6on hath, He hath not from Himself, but from the 
Father (John 5:19 seq. ) ; for if He had it from Himself, He 
would then be a second Father, and not what He is through 
the love of the Father, and thus the original unit} 7 of their 
relation, and, consequently, that of God, would be given 
up, and we would fall into a dualism of gods. Hence it is 
essential to Monotheism to maintain the Eternal Generation 
of the Only-Begotten Son of the Father (John 1 : 18), or the 
ever-proceeding impartation, from the eternal love of the 
Father, of all His glory to the immanent Son, without 
which the Son would be neither Son nor God, but an idol or 
creature, and the Father would not be the Father in the 
nature of the Godhead. * * * If, then, because God is 
infinitely perfect love, He is for that reason both the subject 
and object of His love, both loving and beloved, Father and 
Son, it undeniably follows that both are distinct, though not 
separate, but on the contrary as much- essentially one as 
personally united, and that not merely by the love through 
which the Son is in the bosom of the Father, but also by the 
mutual love wherewith as the Father loves the Son, so also 
the Son loves the Feather. * * This love does not desire 
to keep love all to itself, to enjoy it without participation, 
without the uniting communion of a third. The perfection 
of love everywhere consists not in duality, but in trinity. 
Wherever it casts its bond around friends or lovers, it unites 
them to a third, to a common object, to a common product, 
to one mutually loved, in whom love is triunified. * * The 
more blessed and loving the Son is in the infinite love of the 



254 APPENDIX. 

Father, and vice versa, the more do both desire to impart 
this holy blessedness in equal perfection to a third person- 
ality of their common nature, i. e., according to the testi- 
mony of Scripture, to the Holy Ghost, in whom they are 
inseparably one, the Father and the Son in the Spirit who is 
from both, the Son and the Spirit in the Father from whom 
are both. This triune existence is their perfect blessedness, 
holiness and glory, which would not be perfect without the 
Holy Ghost, and which requires His personality, because the 
communion of love depends thereon. If He were no per- 
son, but only an unconscious essence, an obscure energy of 
God, He would be neither God nor Spirit, and Holy Scrip- 
ture would speak falsely when it calls Him such ; for a 
Spirit without personality and without consciousness would 
be a Spirit without spirit, and would not bring forth such 
fruits as are described, Gal. 5 :22. ,> 

NoTK 12, Page 47. 

TwKSTKN, p. 87 : "If the question be asked as to what 
could have induced God to create the world, we must keep 
clear of everything conflicting with the absolute independ- 
ence and sufficiency of the Divine Essence. The creative 
act could have proceeded only from the absolutely free will 
of God, and not from any necessity that controlled God, nor 
from any need of God that was to be supplied. Accordingly 
every view is to be rejected by which the Divine perfection 
and blessedness would appear to be conditioned by the exist- 
ence of the world, or as capable of growth thereby. God 
in creating could not have received anything. He could 
only have given something. The only motive could be His 
free and infinite love. But, if this were the motive, we can 
place its end in nothing short of what is the object of love, 
viz. : the communication of the highest good. * * * 

" The older theologians unanimously find the ultimate 
end in the glory of God, and regard the welfare of creatures, 
especially rational creatures, the subordinate or intermediate. 



APPENDIX. 255 

Exception has been taken to this by some who are more 
recent, as though thereby a selfish purpose, and one con- 
flicting with His self-sufficiency were ascribed to God. But 
correctly understood both are identical. Creation advances 
the glory of God by revealing Him and His infinite perfec- 
tions, and it can be said incontrovertibly that God in willing 
the Creation, willed that this should be His revelation. But 
God reveals Himself by communicating Himself who is the 
highest good, and He communicates to creatures the highest 
good by revealing in and to them Himself and His per- 
fections. " 

Note 13, Page 48. 
Meunchthon, Loci Theologici, C. R. XXI., 607: 
"Ideo conditum est genus humanum ac deinceps ideo 
redemptum est, ut sit imago et templum Dei Deum cele- 
brans." 

Note 14, Page 48. 

MEI.ANCHTHON treats Providence as a part of the 
article of Creation. Thus in his Loci of the second period 
(C. R. XXI : 270), he says: "In the article concerning 
Creation, a perpetual preservation and sustentation must 
al ways be understood . I believe in God the Father, Almighty 
Maker of Heaven and Earth. Understand this, as referring, 
not merely to a condition, but to a perpetual governance and 
preservation.' ' So also QtjenstedT (1 1531) : "God pre- 
serves all things by the continuance of the action, whereby 
He first produced them. For the preservation of an object 
is properly nothing else than its continued production ; nor 
do they differ, except by an extrinsic denomination.' ' For 
a full discussion of the relation between the conceptions, 
see Twestex, II, Part I : 65 seq. 

Note 15, Page 53. 
Luther has made essentially this distinction in his expo- 
sition of the Magnificat, (Works, Krlangen Edition, 45 -.221): 



256 APPENDIX. 

"The first part, the spirit, is the highest, deepest, noblest 
part of man, whereby he is able to comprehend intangible, 
invisible, eternal things, and, in brief, is the house where 
Faith and God's Word dwell within. Of this David speaks 
in Psalms 51 : 10. The second part, the soul, is the same 
spirit, as to nature, but occupied with another work, viz., as 
when it quickens the body and works through it. Hence in 
Scripture it is often used for ' life.' For the spirit can live 
without the body ; but the body cannot live without the 
spirit. It is the office of this part not to grasp incompre- 
hensible things, but only what reason can know and weigh. 
P.eason is here the light in the house. Where the spirit is 
not illumined with faith as a higher light, this light of reason 
prevails. * * For it is too feeble to treat of divine things." 
The distinction is most satisfactorily explained by 
CrKmer in the Herzog-Plitt Real Encyclopedic ', and in his 
Biblisch-theologtsches Worterbuch der N. T. Gracilat (6th 
edition) : " The spirit is the divine life-principle of the soul, 
immanent in the individual life, but not a divine life-principle 
identical with it. Hence the distinction between bcdy, soul 
and spirit, in 1 Thess. 5 : 23." So also in Herzog-Plitt y and 
Schaff-Herzog : "The distinction between spirit and soul, 
is the peculiar characteristic in the Biblical idea of the 
nature of man. But by this, the extraordinarily important 
fact for Anthropology, Christology, Soteriology and Escha- 
tology, that Scripture teaches Trichotomy, is not declared. 
On the contrary, nothing is farther from it, than such a 
Trichotomy, as, e. g. , the Platonic. The Biblical Trichotomy, 
as we find it in 1 Thess. 5 : 23 ; Heb. 4 : 24, and which rests 
there not upon Hellenistic reminiscences, but upon the 
knowledge of sin and experience of salvation, does not 
exclude a decidedly dichotomistic expression, as 1 Peter 
2: ii, where the soul is regarded simply according to her 
spiritual determination as the bearer of divine life- principle 
(Cf. Phil. 1 : 27)." Frank (System der Christlichen Wahr- 
heit, I :38s) : "If the question be raised concerning the 



APPENDIX. 257 

Dichotomy or Trichotomy of man's nature, we cannot do 
otherwise than declare in favor of the former, but in such 
way that our answer be modified according to the results of 
the investigation just made. * * Notwithstanding the 
distinction in thought between ' spirit* and 'soul,' 
nevertheless, in the passages mentioned, man is regarded 
as composed of body and soul, i. e., a soul characterized by 
a human spirit, and that which survives and abides after 
man's death is designated ' soul, ' as well as 'spirit.* And 
from this result, such passages as Heb. 4:12, and 1 Thess. 
5 : 23, with their appearance of Trichotomy, cannot divert 
us." 

Trichotomy has its most able modern advocate in 
Deutzsch, in his System of Biblical Psychology. For argu- 
ments against it, see Schmid (2nd American edition) p. 175. 
The statements of several recent American theologians are 
also interesting : 

H. B. Smith (Presbyterian) p. 166: "The words 
'spirit' and 'soul' designate, the former, the life as pro- 
ceeding from God ; the latter, the life as that of the indi- 
vidual." * * If spirit and soul were two distinct substances, 
then (a) death could not be described as the giving up of the 
soul (Gen. 35 : iS ; 1 Kings 17 : 21 ; Acts 15 : 26. Cf. 20 : 10, 
11), and again as tho giving up of the spirit (Psalms 31 : 5 ; 
Luke 23:46; Acts 7:59. Cf. Luke 8:55); (b) 'souls' 
and ■ spirits ' of the dead could not mean the same (1 Peter 
3 : 19 ; Heb. 12 : 23 ; Rev. 6 : 9 ; 20 14); (c) we should not 
find the Scriptural formula for man to be sometimes ' body 
and soul ' (Psalms 73 : 26 ; Matt. 6 : 25 ; 10 : 28), and some- 
times 'body and spirit ' (Eccl. 12 : 7 ; 1 Cor. 5 : 3, 5)." Cf. 
Stearns, Present Day Theology, p. 196; Strong, Sys- 
tematic Theology, pp. 243 seq. ; Hodge, Systematic Theo- 
logy* 2 '• 49 sec L- ; Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 2 : 651 seq. 

Note 16, Page 53. 
Phixippi, 2 : 368. 



253 



APPENDIX. 



Note 17, Page 54. 
Frank (I: p. 371) refers to the unity of Creation as 
found in man when endowed with the image of God. All 
the various parts of Creation centered and were united in 
him. "With his head, he rose into the pure ether of 
divinity, where the heavenly spirits adore the Thrice-holy, 
and with his feet he descended into the depths of the 
unconscious material world/' 

Note 18, Page 57. 
Phiuppi, 3 : 256. Cf. concerning the following para- 
graphs, the same writer, pp. 256-270. Schleiermacher's 
difficulties concerning a personal devil are examined and 
answered also by Dornkr, System of Christian Doctrine, 
(Edinburgh translation) 3 : pp. 95 seq. 

Note 19, Page 61. 
MEI/ANChthon, Loci ( C. R. XXI 1378): ' l Peccatum 
non signincat in sacris Uteris tantum, ut grammatice sonat 
L,atinis, factum aliquod, sed significat et perpetuum vitium, 
hoc est, corruptionem naturae pugnantem cum lege, et facta 
pugnantia cum lege Dei." (p. 380) : "Vocoautem corrup- 
tionem non actum aliquem, sed perpetuum morbum, atque 
illud ipsum, quod alii vocant nunc defectus, nunc concupis- 
centiam, nunc inordinationem appetitus, quae nunc in 
natura reliqua est * * Anselmus recte definit peccatum 
originis, cum ait, esse carentiam justitiae originalis." Cf. 
Apology of Augsburg Confession, 78 : 15. 

Note 20, Page 62. 

For a most thorough exposition and defence of the doc- 
trine of Original Sin, see Krauth, Conservative Reforma- 
tion, pp. 355 seq. 

Original Sin is used in a two-fold sense : First, for the 
sin of Adam, the source of all other sins. This sin belongs 
to his descendants, since all humanity was in Adam. Omn.es 
fuimus in illo into, quando fuimus ille unus (Augustine, 
De Civitate Dei, VIII: 14). Secondly, for the corruption 



APPENDIX. 259 

of human nature with which all are born. This corruption 
is of itself sin ; for to be without love to God and to have 
the will arrayed against God, is of itself sin. 

The doctrine of Original Sin seems inexplicable except 
upon the theory of Traducianism, which teaches that the 
soul as well as the body is propagated from parent to child. 
If Traducianism be denied, then either (a) sinexists in the 
body, but not in the soul, or (b) sin so thoroughly pervades 
the body, that when, according to the theory of Creationism 
a new soul is created and enters the body, it at once becomes 
contaminated, or (c) God creates sinful souls, and thus is the 
author of sin. " If it be supposed that the spirit of the 
individual is at every time immediately created by Gcd, 
there follow therefrom the consequences, contrary to Scrip- 
ture and experience, that the human spirit stands independ- 
ently, without any actual relation to Original Sin ; that it is 
God Himself who concludes the human spirit under its con- 
sequences ; that there is only a sinful determination of the 
bodily nature involved in the enclosing of the so-called 
natural-psyche, but not an inherited sin comprehending 
man's whole personality, and certainly net an inherited 
guilt ; that substantially every begetting is a new com- 
mencement of human history." Dei^itzsch, Biblical Psy- 
chology (Edinburgh Edition), p. 135. Delitzsch finds 
another strong argument in the incarnation, upon the basis 
of the statement of Gregory of Nazianzum , which he quotes : 
Si Christus non assumsisset animam ab anima Mariae, 
animam humanam non redemisset. While Luther main- 
tained an unusual reserve on this subject, there has been 
almost unanimity among Lutheran theologians, the only 
prominent exceptions being Brexz in the Sixteenth, and 
CauxT and MtJSAEUS in the Seventeenth Century. Roman 
Catholics are generally Creationists, Ki,KK, Staudenmaier 
and Frohschammbr being, however, Traducianists. Re- 
formed theologians are also generally Creationists. But 
there are exceptions, among whom is H. B. Smith, who 



260 APPENDIX, 

answers well the counter argument concerning the simplic- 
ity of the soul, and concludes that ' ' Traducianism is the 
most natural theory, and has fewer difficulties" {System, 
p. 169). One of the most elaborate arguments in favor of 
Traducianism is made by Shedd {Dogmatic Theology, 
Vol. 2: pp. 7-94). The Baptist theologian Strong accepts 
it for the following reasons: " (a) It seems best to accord 
with Scripture, (b) It is favored by the analogy of vege- 
table and animal life, in which increase of numbers is 
secured, not by a multiplicity of new creations, but by the 
natural derivation of new individuals from a parent stock. 
(c) The observed transmission not merely of physical, but 
of mental and spiritual characteristics, (d) The Traducian 
doctrine embraces and acknowledges the element of truth 
which gives plausibility to the Creation view. Traducian- 
ism admits a divine concurrence throughout the whole 
development of the human species.' ' System, pp. 252 seq. 

Note 21, Page 63. 
See Formula of Concord, Chapter II ; also Chemnitz, 
Loci Theologici, seu Libero Arbitrio, I : 165 seq. 

Note 22, Page 72. 
It was this thought that prompted Gregory's bold excla- 
mation : ' ' O felix culpa, quae tantum meruit redemptorem." 
Gerhard looks also on the other side, and changes it into 
" O misera culpa, quae talis redemptoris nos fecisti in- 
dignos." (Gerhard, Loci Theologici, V :g). 

Note 23, Page 76. 
14 We Christians must know that if God were not in the 
one balance and gave it weight, we would sink to the 
ground with our scale of the balance. By this I mean : If 
it were not said : ' God has died for us,' but only a man, we 
are lost. But if the death of God, and that God died, lie in 
the scale of the balance, He sinks down, and we rise up as a 
light, empty scale. But He also can indeed rise again or 



APPENDIX. 261 

spring from the scale ; yet He could not have descended into 
the scale, unless He had first become a man like us, so that 
it could be said : ' God died,' * God's passion,' God's blood,' 
1 God's death/ For in His nature, God could not die ; but 
now God and man are united in one person, so that the 
expression ' God's death ' is correct, when the man dies, 
who is one thing or one person with God." Luther, "Of 
Councils and the Church," quoted by Formula of Concord, 
p. 632. 

Note 24, Page 79. 
''Why is it that we, miserable men, who are unable to 
comprehend by faith the rays of the divine promise, or to 
receive by works the sparks of God's commandments (both 
of which He confirmed from Heaven by words and miracles), 
nevertheless are borne aloft in our impurity and weakness to 
survey the majesty of the sun's light, aye, the incompre- 
hensible light of the wonderful things of God ? Are we 
ignorant that He dwells in light into which no man can 
approach ? Yet we approach, aye we presume to approach ! 
We are ignorant of His inscrutable judgments, and yet we 
endeavor to scrutinize them ! This we do, before we have 
been pervaded by the rays of His promises, and the sparks 
of His commandments, rushing forth with the eyes of moles 
into the majesty of that light, which is shown neither by 
words or signs, but is concealed. What wonder, if His glory 
overwhelms us, while we scrutinize Bis majesty ! * * Let 
the Day Star first rise in our hearts (2 Peter 1), then we will 
be able to see Him at noon-day. We must teach indeed 
concerning the inscrutable will of God, that we may know 
that there is such a thing, but to try to comprehend it is a 
most perilous precipice. W T herefore I am accustomed to 
restrain myself with the Word of Christ to Peter : ' Follow 
thou Me. If I will that he tarry, what is that to thee ?' and 
with the reply to Philip, who asked : ' Show us the Father, 
and it sufnceth us,' and was checked by the words: 'Be- 



262 APPENDIX, 

lievest thou not that I am in the Father and the Father in 
Me. He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father V Philip 
wanted to see the majesty and secrets of the Father, as 
though, in promises and precepts, God were far above 
Christ. Suppose we knew the secret judgments of God, 
w T hat profit would they bring above His commandments and 
promises?" Luther to Caspar Aquila, October 21, 1528, 
DeWette's Brief e, pp. 391 seq. 

" Therefore no one, who would be saved, should trouble 
or harass himself with thoughts concerning the secret coun- 
sel of God, as to whether he also be elected and ordained to 
eternal life ; for with these thoughts Satan is accustomed 
to attack and annoy godly hearts. But they should hear 
Christ, Who is the Book of Life, and of God's eternal elec- 
tion of all God's children to eternal life ; Who testifies to all 
men without distinction, that it is God's will that all men 
who labor and are heavy laden with sin, should come to 
Him, in order that He may give them rest." Formula of 
Concord, p. 661. 

Note 25, Page 88. 
Cf. Eadie on Bph. 1 : 10. 

Note 26, Page 93. 
Caussae cur minus abhorreas a morte, scriptae a Philippo 
Melauthone in pagella, paucis diebus ante obitum. 

A dextris. 
Venies in lucem. 



A sinistris. 
Discedas a peccatis. 



Liberaberis a aerumnis. 



Ft a rabie Theologorum 



Videbis Deum. 
Intueberis Filium Dei. 
Disces ilia mira arcana, quae 

in hac vita intelligere non 

potuisti : 
Cur sic simus conditi, Qualis 

sit copulatio duarum na- 

turarum in Christo. 
Melanchthon's Works, (C. R. IX :p. 1098). 



APPENDIX. 263 

Note 27, Page 95. 

The doctrine of the anhypostasia of the human nature 
of Christ, upon which Lutheran writers so strongly insist, 
and which is explained and defended in Schmid (2nd Ameri- 
can edition, pp. 307 seq), has been well stated by Schaff, 
whom we quote as a witness from the Reformed Church : 

"It can:iot be said : The Logos assumed a liuman^r- 
SOn t or united Himself with a definite human individual; 
for then the God-Man would consist of two persons ; but he 
took upon Himself the human nature, which is common to 
man ; and therefore he redeemed not a particular man, 
but all men as partakers of the same nature or substance. 
The personal Logos did not become an individual anthropos 
but sarks flesh, which includes the whole of human nature, 
body, soul and spirit," Church History, III : 751 seq. "The 
anhypostasia, impersonality, or to speak more accurately, 
the enhypostasia, of the human nature. This is a difficult 
point, but a necessary link in the orthodox doctrire of the 
one God-Man ; for otherwise we must have two persons in 
Christ, and, after the incarnation, a fourth person, and that 
a human, in the divine Trinity. * * The centre of per- 
sonal life in the God-Man resides unquestionably in the 
Logos, who was from eternity the second person in the God- 
head, and could not lose his personality. He united Him- 
self not with a human person, but with a human nature. 
The divine nature is therefore the root and basis of the per- 
sonality of Christ. Christ, Himself, moreover, always speaks 
and acts in the full consciousness of His divine origin and 
character ; as having come from the Father, as having been 
sent by Him, and even during His earthly life, living in 
heaven and in unbroken communion with the Father. And 
the human nature of Christ had no independent personality 
cf its own, beside the divine ; it had no existence at all be- 
fore the incarnation, but began with this act, and was so in- 
corporated with the pre-existent Logos personality as to find 
in this alone its full self-consciousness, and to be permeated 



264 



APPENDIX. 



and controlled by it in every stage of its development. But 
the human nature forms a necessary element in the divine 
personality, and in this sense we may say with the older 
Protestant theologians, that Christ is a person synthetos 
which was divine and human at once. Thus interpreted, 
the Church doctrine cf the enhypostasia presents no very 
great metaphysical or psychological difficulty. It is true 
we cannot, according to our modern way of thinking, con- 
ceive a complete human nature without personality. We 
make personality, itself consist in intelligence and free will, 
so that without it the nature sinks to a mere abstraction of 
powers, qualities and functions. But the human nature of 
Jesus never was in fact alone ; it was from the beginning 
inseparably united with another nature, which is personal, 
and which assumed the human into unity of life with itself. 
The Logos-personality is in this case the light of self-con- 
sciousness and the impelling power of will, and pervades as 
well the human nature as the divine." lb. : pp. 757 seq. 



N0T3 28, Page: 100. 

Dr. Shkdd, e.g. in antagonizing the Lutheran doctrine 
of the impartation of divine attributes to the humanity of 
Christ, falls into the still greater difficulty of the impartation 
of human attributes to the divine nature. He says (Dog- 
matic Theology, 2 : 327) : " Suppose the presence of the di- 
vine nature of Christ in the soul of a believer, while partak- 
ing of the sacrament in London. This divine nature is at 
same moment conjoined with, and present to and modified 
by the human nature of Christ, which is in heaven, and not 
in London. This conjunction between both is equivalent to 
the presence of both, * * so that whatever influence or 
effect the divine nature exerts in the believer's soul as he re- 
ceives the sacrament is a divine-human influence." 

Stkarns approaches more nearly the Luheran view : 
" Have His divine attributes been communicated to His hu- 
man nature ? He promised His disciples, that He would be 



APPENDIX, 265 

with them always, even unto the end of the world. How is 
this presence effected ? Is the human nature cmnipresent 
since the glorification of Christ ? So say the Lutherans, 
moved thereto by their doctrine of the Lord's Supper. That 
Christ's human nature should be present in a true sense in a 
thousand worshipping assemblies at the same time, and 
communicated to every one who partakes of the consecrated 
bread and wine, this must be the case. And even though 
we may hold a wholly different doctrine of the sacrament, 
there is much in the theory of Christ's human Omnipresence 
to commend it to our acceptance. * * To those who think 
most deeply on the subject, and with most real longing for 
personal communion with the human Christ, the Lutheran 
view has great attractiveness." Present Day Theology,^. 
158. So also Dr. EadiE of the United Presbyterian Church 
in Scotland : 

The fulness of1:he Godhead tl has made its abode in his 
humanity without consuming it or deifying it, or changing 
any of its essential properties. It hungered and it ate, it 
thirsted and it drank, it grieved and it wept, it watched and 
it prayed, it wearied itself and it lay down, it was exhausted 
and it slept, it bled and it died. * * * It was no tempo- 
rary union, but an abiding possession. His glorious body 
has in it the same fulness of the Godhead, as had the body 
of his humiliation. " On Colossians 2 : 9. 

Note 29, Page 114. 
"The Ascension, as the exaltation of the Son of Man, is 
not so much a local removal from one place to another, as 
that exemption of the human nature from the limitations of 
this finite world, which took place together with the re- 
development of the unlimited Divine Glory, and by reason 
of which it is no longer in its measure bound to space and 
time, like curs below, but, moved by the Godhead, pene- 
trates, like rays of light, even remote distances with freest 
movement. Notwithstanding, it remains essentially identi- 



266 



APPENDIX. 



cal with our nature, just as the worm and butterfly are 
identical, though the one crawls and the other flies. The 
Divine properties become its own not substantially, but by 
communication, even as the mirror shines like the sun, not 
by its own light, but by that reflected upon it by the sun, 
which it reflects back, while without the sun it is itself dark. 
It is net with His exclusively and directly Divine Presence, 
which, because it is this, is neither mediatorial norrecon- 
ciliatory, but with His Divine and human personal nearness, 
that the Mediator and Reconciler is, according to His own 
good pleasure, with us always, even to the end of the world, 
so that He is not withdrawn from us by the Ascension, but, 
on the contrary, is efficaciously near. In His divine human- 
ity, He exercises His royal mediatorship or High-priesthood 
on our behalf, and carries on His work of reconciliation 
until the last enemy shall be overcome. As Reconciler, He 
communicates to us, through the means of grace, which He 
has instituted, the benefits of His divine grace, makes us, 
by the medium of His human, partakers of His divine 
nature, and admits us, under the consecrated bread and 
wine, into the communion of His glorified Body and Blood." 
Sartorius, Doctrine of Divine Love, 145 seq. 

Chemnitz (De Persona Chrisii, p. 174) : "The Ascen- 
sion was not a sudden separation, but, by a visible motion. 
He was raised on high and withdrawn upward ; for a cloud 
received Him out of the sight of the Apostles, so that, with 
a visible interval, He departed farther and farther from their 
gaze. Luke 24:53: * He was parted from them/. These 
words should be understood and received absolutely, just as 
the words sound in their literal signification, and foreign 
ideas should not be introduced. We have shown that the 
assumed humanity of Christ, by its union with the divinity, 
has not been converted or changed into an infinite or im- 
mense essence, but that, in the union, and afterwards, it has 
and retains the reality of its human nature and its physical 
or essential attributes, according to which a human body 



APPENDIX. 267 

consists of a certain, finite and circumscribed dimension of 
members, which, consisting of local or finite situation and 
position of members, has one part related to the other in a 
certain order. The Body of Christ, therefore, since it is 
finite by the property of its nature, essentially and natural' y, 
i. e., according to the natural properties which it has and 
retains even in the union, occupies, in a local and circum- 
scriptive way, a definite place. And if the Body of Christ 
did not have, from the hypostatic union, something more 
besides and above its essential properties, or if the Son cf 
God would act in His Body only according to its natural 
properties, and not otherwise, or if we had no other peculiar 
word or promise, it would follow that He would be orly 
circumscriptively in a certain place, just as bodies that are 
purely human." 

P. 176 : u Therefore by itself and of itself, even in glory, 
it is limited by the peculiarity of its nature, and, after the 
manner of glorified spirits, is somewhere, the privilege of the 
hypostatic union excepted. In this visible form or condition 
of glorified bodies, Christ is not present with us in this life in 
the Church Militant, but in Heaven, whence He will return 
to judgment in the form in which He now offers Himself to 
the sight of the blessed souls and spirits, and as He is often 
described in the Apocalypse. In this form, He will return 
in glory to judgment." 

The hypothesis of the ubiquity of the Body of Christ 
often alleged to be the teaching of the Lutheran Church is 
expressly and emphatically condemned by the Formula of 
Concord. Among the errors enumerated as belonging to the 
class of which it says : " We have neither part nor fellow- 
ship with these errors, but reject and condemn them, one 
and all, as wrong and heretical and contrary to the Scriptures 
of the Apostles and Prophets," is that of the Schwenck- 
feldians who are quoted as asserting M that the flesh of Christ 
has by exaltation so assumed all divine properties that, in 
might, power, majesty and glory, He is everywhere, in 



268 



APPENDIX. 



degree and place of essence equal with the Father, so that 
there is the same essence, properties, will and glory of both 
natures in Christ," (p. 669 : 29). 

Note 30, Page 114. 
Chemnitz, lb. p. 177 : "But we add that Christ, neverthe- 
less, by an extraordinary dispensation, can afford a presence 
of His Body in the Church on earth, whenever and wherever 
He wishes, and can do this, even in a visible way, as the 
history of Paul testifies. For who can put chains upon Christ, 
or who can place limits to His power and wisdom? But if 
we had in Scripture no express word or special promise con- 
cerning the presence of Christ, according to His human 
nature, in the Church Militant on this earth ; or, if Scripture 
taught that Christ is present in the Church on earth, only 
according to His divine nature, in my simplicity I would 
neither venture nor wish to advance or receive anything 
from mere arguments concerning the prerogatives of th.2 
hypostatic union. For I hold that the most correct way is 
to keep oneself absolutely, religiously and carefully within 
the bounds of the Divine revelation delivered to us in His 
Word. But we have the express word and special promise 
in a peculiar institution and testamentary ordinance, 
sanctioned by the Son of God in the night in which He was 
betrayed, and repeated to Paul by Christ, after His Ascen- 
sion, when in Heaven, in Hia glory and seated at the Right 
Hand of God," etc. 



Note 31, Page 114. 
The recent invention of Edison, the Kinetograph, takes 
forty-six impressions a second, or 2,760 a minnte. When his 
arrangements provide for "the fractional degree of light 
comprised in the 2 * part of a second," we may well be 
humiliated in our slowness to believe the mysteries of the 
Infinite. See article in The Century for June, 1894, 
pp. 206-14, 



APPENDIX, 269 

Note 32, Page 120. 

1 ' Not punishment, but sacrifice atones ; but punishment 
becomes sacrifice, not by being merely endured, but by being 
submitted to with self-denial, with full surrender to the will 
of God. A criminal does not propitiate even the judgment 
of man, by suffering the punishment inflicted on him by the 
law : on the contrary, if he suffers w T iih an indignant and 
stubborn spirit, the indignation against him remains; it is 
not till he acknowledges his guilt, and with the sacrifice of 
his self-will fully submits to punishment, that his suffering 
calls forth compassion and propitiates the judgment of man. 
So long as punishment does not become sacrifice by willing 
acquiescence in self-denying obedience to the law, its 
endurance does not inwardly satisfy, and for this very lack 
of satisfaction it does not cease ; for the contrast between 
the divine and human will continues, and, therefore, also 
the punishment, w r hich is the energy of this contrast. * * 
It is just this self-renunciation which is lacking to sinners 
in their selfishness and wilfulness. Their suffering, as their 
doing, is either unwilling under the constraint of the law, or 
self-willed according to their own selfish choice and purpose. 
Thisself-will assumes the form of sacrifice in all self-invented 
service of God in asceticism and mortifications * * Christ's 
vicarious atoning sacrifice is proved to be such, not by the 
penalty, not by the curse, though these were in the highest 
degree and the greatest extent laid upon Him, but by the 
willingness with which He bore them. * * The atoning 
satisfaction in Christ's sufferings, the feature by which they 
are raised from a Satisfiassion to a Satisfaction, is the sur- 
render of the Divine and human will in the obedience, the 
patience, the sympathy of the suffering. It was by willingly 
taking the curse upon Him, like a sacrificial lamb, that He 
changed it into a blessing for us. It was the Divine patience 
in suffering that makes Jesus the Lamb of God that taketh 
away the sin of the world." SarTorius, pp. 156, 169. 

But while " the self surrender of the will to God" is 



270 



APPENDIX. 



an essential element in sacrifice for sin, it is not the sole 
element, as is maintained by a modern school of theologians, 
who, den3 T ing everything miraculous in Christianity, and 
with it necessarily the fact that Jesus is God, regard redemp- 
tion, not as accomplished by the satisfaction of the God-Man 
for a ruined world, but only as an educational process within 
man. To fore-know these theories is to be fore-armed 
against them. " The truth is," says a most prominent advo- 
cate of this theory, "that redemption is not a miraculous 
process external to us, which was accomplished long ago 
and once for all, by the sacrificial death of a God in our 
favor, but that it is a moral event happening within the soul, 
which always repeats itself, the self-sacrifice of the will to 
God, in obedience, love and patience." According to this 
theory the only value in the work and sufferings of Christ is 
in the object-lesson they present. ' 'Jesus has become the 
Redeemer by pre-eminence in that He first understood 
Redemption in its true moral sense, as the freedom in God 
which is to be realized only by surrender of one's own will, 
and has presented it to the e}-es of mankind typically in His 
person, and in His life and death. * * He did away with 
the idle waiting for future redeeming miracles of Omnipo- 
tence, and inaugurated the devoted working for the present 
inward redemption, that is, the education of men into true 
children of God." Pfi/eiderER, Philosophy and Develop- 
ment of Religion, Gifferd Lectures delivered before the 
University of Edinburgh, 1894, Vol. I : pp. 252 seq. Such is 
a specimen of the theology which boasts of its progress 
beyond that of the Reformation. We are not surprised to 
find it accusing St. Paul of "idolatry of Scripture "(2 : 159), 
and criticizing freely "the theory of vicarious atonement 
and imputed righteousness," as belonging to "the dry 
skeleton of his Phariseau categories" (2 : 169), nor to read 
the involved process of sophistry by which the facts of the 
resurrection history are referred to the vivid imagination and 
excitable soul of Peter (2 : 113-6), nor to hear the battle cry : 



APPENDIX. 271 

€< The ecclesiastical struggle of the present is just a struggle 
of spiritual freedom against Lutherism " (2 : 345). 

The claim that self-surrender cf the will to God is the 
sole element in Redemption, overlooks the awful reality of 
the presence of sin, and its deep significance. Prof. PfLeiderer 
himself has made a suggestion, where he argues earnestly 
for religion as the source of morality, and says justly : "One 
can only deceive oneself regarding this danger, so long as 
the eyes are closed in naive optimism, to the power of the 
evil and badness that are in the world outside of ourselves 
and to the weakness of one's own heart, as is indeed the case 
at the moment with most of the heralds of humanity or of 
religionless morality. But experience also teaches that this 
simple optimism is not able to stand long before the harsh 
power of reality " (1:61). 

Note 33, Page 125. 

With this, therefore, falls the entire conception of any 
propitiatory sacrifice in the Eucharist. Ministers of the New 
Testament can never be priests, except as, with all other 
believers, they offer the spiritual sacrifices of prayer, praise 
and thanksgiving. 

It is interesting to note how, under the pressure of the 
arguments of the Reformers, one of the foremost advocates 
of the sacerdotal system attempted to so spiritualize the inter- 
pretation of the Offering in the Mass, as to give it essentially 
a Zwinglian meaning. John Gropper writes in his Anti- 
didagma (Paris, 1545) : 

1 ' Christ our Lord, when He willed to offer Himself as a 
bloody victim once for us, on the night in which He was 
betrayed, instituted and left for us, before His suffering, an 
image of His sacrifice, as though it were a sacrifice, by which 
we might continually make repeated sacrifice. * * And He 
commanded us again and again and forever, until He comes 
to offer up this most holy sacrifice to His Heavenly Father 
in a spiritual and commemorative way " (p. 94). 



272 



APPENDIX. 



Chemnitz, in his Examen, notes this " mitigaiio" of 
the Scholastic doctrine, and Gropper's effort to charge the 
Lutherans with a misrepresentation of what the Roman 
teachers actually taught. He shews, however, how Grop- 
per's theory of the Mass is completely repudiated by the 
Decrees of Trent. The following canon is sufficient : "If 
any one saith, that the Sacrifice of the Mass is only a sacri- 
fice of praise and of thanksgiving ; or, that it is a bare com- 
memoration of the sacrifice consummated on the Cross, but 
not a propitiatory sacrifice ; or that it profits him only that 
receives ; and that it ought not to be offered for the living 
and the dead, for sins, pains, satisfactions and other necessi- 
ties ; let him be anathema." (De Sacrificio Missae y 
Canon III. ) 

Note 34, Page 125. 
QuENSTEDT distinguishes between the " intercessionem 
Christi in statu praegressae exinanitionis" and the " inter- 
peilationem hi static subsecutae exaltationis." 

Note 35, Page 127. 

"How the three offices mutually interpenetrate in His 
action, how each of them requires the force residing in the 
others for its own completion, will be rendered evident by 
considering the intrinsic value of this division. * * 

"Sin leads to darkening of the consciousness of God, 
world and self, so that henceforth sin and error, by a sad 
reciprocal influence, evoke a state of spiritual darkness. 
Over against this state, Christ is the Light of the World by 
teaching and example — the Prophetic Office. 

" Again, sin works guilt, and the consciousness of guilt 
is not incidental, but necessary to the consciousness of 
deserved punishment. To abolish guilt and punishment, to 
bring atonement, is the proper High-priestly function. 

" But since, finally, sin advances to inherent and generic 
evil, becoming evil propensity and evil strength, which 



APPENDIX. 273 

bring with them decay and death to the world, the Redeemer 
must also have the power to impart to the world the princi- 
ples of regeneration, sanctification and the new life, and 
thus to vanquish sin itself along with its effects, even death. 
But all this takes place in such a way that the perfecting of 
the individual is also the perfecting of humanity, or of the 
Kingdom of God. Thus He is also the King. 

"But the same truth may also be seen from the stand- 
point of God, whose perfect revelation is to appear through 
Christ's official activity. Over against the three foes — error, 
guilt and sin, death — stand Wisdom, holy Love and holy 
Power animated by both as a healing power and a revelation 
of God. In these three fundamental definitions God's reve- 
lation of Himself is completed, and thus the threefold office 
of Christ is also the mirror of the perfect idea of God. For 
in His living personal activity or office, Christ is also the 
Divine-human, historically-realized image of Gcd, and 
restores that image in us through illumination, justification 
and sanctification," Dorxer's, System of Christian Doc- 
trine, 3 : pp. 388 seq. 

Note 36, Page 129. 
A full treatment of the doctrine of the Kingdom of God, 
is found in Phixippi, 5, 3 : 159 seq. Cf. Weiss, Biblical 
Theology of the New Testament, 1:62 seq., 153 seq.; 
2:62, 97 seq. etc.; H. B. Smith, System of Christian 
Theology, 490-621 ; Stearns, Present Day Theology, 110- 
128. The last says : " If I were asked what has been the 
greatest achievement of recent theology, I would sa}' that 
it was the revival of this doctrine of the Kingdom and its 
restoration to its proper place in the theological system." 
Van Oosterzee has made it the theme of his system, and 
classifies his dogmatical material under the heads : " I. God, 
the Sovereign King of this Kingdom, Theology. 2. Man, 
the subject of this Kingdom, Anthropology. 3. Christ, the 
Founder of this Kingdom, Christology. 4. Redemption, 



274 



APPENDIX. 



the Character of this Kingdom, Objective Soteriology. 
5. The Way of Salvation, the Fundamental Law of this 
Kingdom, Subjective Soteriology. 6. The Church, the 
Training School of this Kingdom, Ecclesiology. 7. The 
Coming of the Lord, the Completion of His Kingdom, 
Eschatology. ' ' Thus the treatmentreturns to the suggestion 
of Augustine in his work De Civitate Dei. Much material 
is found in LUTHER, especially in his various Expositions of 
the Second Petition of the Lord's Prayer. See collection 
of passages from Luther in Geist aus Luther's Schriften 
(Lomler, Lucius, Rust, Sackreuter and Zimmerman) 
3 : 1068-70. Mei^anchthon has a chapter on the subject 
in his Loci, but it is confined chiefly to its spirituality. 

Note 37, Page 147. 
Lohe quoted by BESSER on John, (Eng. translation), 
2:195. 

Note 38, Page 156. 
Sartorius, Doctrine of Divine Love, p. 104. 

Note 39, Page 157- 
Council of Trent, Session VI, Canon XXI : "If any one 
saith, that Christ Jesus was given of God to men, as a 
Redeemer, in whom to trust, and not also as a Legislator, 
whom to obey ; let him be anathema." Cf. the complaint 
of the Apology, p. 160, concerning those who "have 
obscured the office of Christ, and have made out of Christ, 
not a Propitiator and Justifier, but only a Legislator." 
The arguments of Bellarmine in support of the Tridentine 
Canon are stated and refuted with exhaustive thoroughness 
in Gerhard, Loci Theologici, 6 : 140 seq. 



Note 40, Page 15&. 
" What more forcible and more terrible declaration and 



APPENDIX. 275 

preaching of God's wrath against sin is there, than the suf- 
fering and death of Christ His Son ? But as long as this all 
preaches God's wrath and terrifies men, it is still properly 
the preaching neither of the Gospel, nor of Christ, but of 
Moses and the Law." Luther quoted in Formula of Con- 
cord, p. 591. 

Note 41, Page 162. 
Large Catechism, 468 : 22 ; 477 : 7. 

Note 42, Page 162. 
Augustine on John 15 : 3 ; "Detrahe enim verbum, et 
quid est aqua, nisi aqua? Accedit verbum ad elementum, 
et fit Sacramentum, etiam ipsum tanquam visibile verbum." 
Migne edition, 3 : 1840. 

Note 43, Page 162. 
A precise definition of ' ' Sacrament ' ' was only gradually 
arrived at in the Lutheran Church. MEiyANCHTHON was at 
first inclined to entirely reject the term, In the earlier 
editions of his Loci, he said : " Quae alii sacramenta, nos 
signa adpellamus, aut, si ita libet, signa sacramentalia. 
Nam sacramentum ipsum Christum Paulus vocat. Quod si 
signi nomen displicet, aopayidag adpelles, quo propius vis 
sacramentorum signetur," (C. R. XXI: 210). In the 
Schwabach Articles of 1529, "Baptism and the Lord's Supper 
are designated as "external signs, which are called sacra- 
ments." In the Apology, MEIvANCHThon defines them as 
"signs and testimonies of God's will towards us, through 
which God moves hearts to believe," and "rites which have 
the command of God, and to which the promise of grace 
has b.en added" (p. 213). The inclusion of Absolution in 
in the Apology, as a third sacrament, shows clearly that the 
fundamental conception at that time was that of an external 
rite, whereby the general promise of God's grace was applied 
to the individual. Meunchthon's final definition in the 



276 



APPENDIX. 



last editions of his Loci was : " A. sacrament is a ceremony 
instituted in the Gospel, to be a testimony of the promise, 
peculiar to the Gospel, viz. , that of promised reconciliation 
or grace.' ' 

Note 44, Page 162. 
Apology, p. 214 : 5 : " The effect of the Word and of the 
rite is the same, as it has been well said by Augustine that a 
Sacrament is ' a visible Word.' " 



Note 45> Page 165. 
Formula of Concord, p. 656 : 37. 

Note 46, Page 165. 

" Whereas the Word divides in its manifestations into 
words and sentences, grace thus falling asunder through 
Holy Scripture and preaching into a multiplicity of rays, 
which yet only have their true effect when they again com- 
bine for consciousness into a unity, it is the Sacrament 
which presents grace in its all-embracing completeness and 
makes it visible to the eye of faith. It gives, therefore, not 
a mere ray of grace, but the whole Christ ; and how rich its 
.blessing shall be, depends simply on the degree of receptive- 
ness. 

4 'On the other side, the Sacrament specializes grace, not 
in itself, but in reference to individuals. It applies the one 
and complete grace to individuals in historical progress. It 
does not, as the Word unavoidably dees, exhibit one single 
aspect of Christianity, and that in such a way that the same 
aspect presents itself equally to all, however different they 
may be, and without the individual knowing what he ought 
to apply to himself. On the contrary, the Sacrament 
addresses itself, by Christ's commission and as His action, 
to particular individuals by name, who thereby, provided 
they believe in the divine institution and promise cf the 



APPENDIX. 277 

Sacrament, corne into relation with Christ in His unity and 
entirety, enter into gracious covenant with Him, and thus 
rejoice in Christ's redeeming purpose as referring to their 
own personality, and that at the present moment, without 
putting subjective wishes in the place of objective truth. 
Thus, through the Sacraments instituted by Christ, and dis- 
pensed in His name as though He Himself administered 
them, Christ's work of calling and receiving men into com- 
munion with Him is just as directly applied to men, as once 
to His disciples, so that they may be as confident of His 
loving will as those disciples. Hence, too, it is clear, that 
when some suppose the significance of justification by faith 
must be limited, if_the Sacraments are to receive their due 
honor and their objectivity is to be acknowledged, this is a 
gross misunderstanding of the meaning both of the Sacra- 
ment and of faith. " So little is one a hindrance to the other, 
that faith itself longs for the Sacrament, because faith longs 
after personal assurance of communion with Christ, and that 
not a self-made, sul jective, but subjective-objective assur- 
ance ; and conversely, the Sacrament looks for believing 
partakers of it, because only to such can it impart its bene- 
fit. " Dorner, System of Christian Doctrine, 4:274 seq. 
Cf. Frank, System der Christliche?i Wahrheit, 2 : 301 seq. ; 
Sartorius, Doctri?ie of Divine Love, p. 186, and Qet- 
Tingen in Thomasius' Christologie , (1S63), 3 1136. 

We must, therefore, stand firmly by the statement of 
the Apology, that the effect of Word and Sacrament is the 
same. Hutter [Loci Theologici), p. 612, enters upon 
dangerous ground, when he affirms that in the Sacraments 
something is given over and beyond what is given in the 
Word. "Sacramental grace," he says, "adds something be- 
yond these gifts; for otherwise they who had been previously 
justified and been furnished with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, 
would receive the Sacraments in vain." But the same 
reasoning would dissuade the justified from praying the Lord's 
Prayer ; for, according to this suggestion, they who have 



278 APPENDIX. 

already been forgiven, would pray for forgiveness in vain. 
He finds the peculiar gift of Baptism in the " opening of the 
gate to Renovation and Regeneration," and that of the 
Lord's Supper in " begetting a spiritual sweetness by which 
man's spiritual life is refreshed and animated. " HuTTER 
was not followed in this by the later dogmaticians. In recent 
times, however, it is urged especially by ThomasiuS that 
the doctrine of the Confessions and dogmaticians, "idem 
effectus" needs revision and restatement. See also authori- 
ties quoted by him in Christologie, 3 : 132 seq. Martensen 
finds the distinguishing characteristic of the Sacraments in 
the impartation of the " glorified corporeity " of Christ, 
although he does not attempt to prove that this occurs in 
the Lord's Supper, ( Christian Dogmatic, p. 418). Phiuppi 
answers these assumptions in his Glaubenslehre y 5, 2 : 163 
seq. PFI.KIDKRKR in the Gifford Lectures, delivered in 
1894 in Edinburgh,, carries out to the extreme and extols 
Zwingli's independence not only of the Sacraments, but of 
the Word itself, as the logical development of Luther's doc- 
trine of justifying faith. Luther, he holds, was too much 
fettered by his Mediaeval prejudices to appreciate Zwingli 
and the Anabaptists. To the Berlin Professor, faith is "the 
self-surrender of the will to God," and stands in need 
neither of means of grace> nor of any supernatural influence 
of the Holy Spirit. There was, in his opinion, no anger of 
God on account of sin to be appeased by suffering, and 
hence no need of a vicarious atonement, or of the incarna- 
tion of the Son of God, or the gift and presence of the 
Spirit, or any inspired record of revelation in Holy Scrip- 
ture. To such lengths does hyper-spiritualism, notwith- 
standing its many beautiful sentiments and pious phrases, 
extend ! What does faith avail without an express word and 
promise of God upon which it may rest? There is in 
Luther's doctrine concerning Word and Sacrament "no 
charmed circle of medivseval magic and fantastic ideas," 
but simply the foundation upon wdiich faith may rest. 



APPENDIX. 279 

Note 47, Page 166. 

The doctrine of the Real Presence is treated with ex- 
haustive fulness in Krauth, Conservative Reformation, 
PP. 5S5-S30. 

The argument rests upon the literal interpretation of 
Matt. 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24; Luke 22:19-20; 1 Cor. 
11 : 23-25. The arguments for a figurative interpretation all 
fail. They rest for their chief support upon the inability to 
explain the Real Presence, before which every doctrine of 
revelation must fall, if such a principle of interpretation be 
admitted. Whatever is taught figuratively in some passages 
of Scripture, is taught elsewhere in proper w r ords ; but if 
these passages be interpreted figuratively, we have no doc- 
trine concerning the Lord's Supper taught in proper words. 
The Words of Institution were those of a last will and testa- 
ment, where figurative language is especially avoided. If the 
Lord's Supper be a mere figurative institution, then the Sac- 
rament of the New Testament is a feebler type than that of 
the Old ; for the Lord's Supper, as an emblem, is less strik- 
ing and impressive than the Paschal Lamb, while, on the 
contrary, the doctrine of Holy Scripture is most clear, that 
the emblems and figures of the Old Testament, have now 
been replaced by the substance of the New T , Heb. 10 : 1 ; 
Col. 2:17. The identical form in which the words occur 
in all the accounts must also be considered, as well as the 
strange meaning which being "guilty of the Body and 
Blood of the Lord." 1 Cor. 11:27, would have, if only 
emblems were present. Luther called 1 Cor. 10 : 16 -' the 
living remedy of my heart against all temptations concerning 
this Sacrament," 

It is a real presence, as opposedto one that is significa- 
tive ; a substantial presence, as opposed to one that is 
potential ; a sacramental presence, because inseparable from 
the use of the Lord's Supper. 

It is a presence, not by Transubstantiation, or the 
change of the elements into the Body and Blood of Christ, 



280 APPENDIX. 

or by Consubstantiation, or the natural conjunction of the 
elements and the Body and Blood. But it is such a presence 
that, when the bread and wine are received naturally, the Body 
and Blood of Christ are received by the mouth in a super- 
natural and sacramental way. The bread is eaten naturally ; 
the wine is drunk naturally. The Body of Christ is eaten, 
not naturally, so as to be subject to the processes of masti- 
cation and digestion, etc , but in a supernatural, heavenly 
and inexplicable way, such as never occurs outside of the 
Sacrament, and which is not therefore to be confounded 
with the spiritual eating of the Sixth Chapter of John. 

Note 48, Page 170. 

" Fides ergo est cognitio quaedam vel tenebra, quae 
nihil videt, et tamen in istis tenebris Christus fide appre- 
hensus sedet, sicut Deus in Sinai et in templo sedebat in 
medio tenebrarum." Luther on Gal. 2 : 16. 

Note 49, Page 181. 
A precise definition of " Regeneration " was only gradu- 
ally formed in the Lutheran Church. The Formula of Con- 
C07"d, (p. 572 seq ) points this out, and shows that it had 
sometimes been used by Luther so as to include Renewal or 
Sanctification, and that the Apology, on the other hand, 
had defined it as Justification. Nevertheless the Formula 
still uses it in connection with the Renewal, and, in that 
sense, regards it incomplete, e. g. p. 509 : * ' This Regener- 
ation and Renewal are not complete, but are only begun. " 
But the Biblical conception of Regeneration is more accu- 
rately the communication of a new life principle, "anew 
life-commencement," (Cf. CremER, Lexicon), and as such 
must be instantaneous or synonymous with spiritual quick- 
ening. HoUvAZiuS regarded the regeneration of infants 
instantaneous, but that of adults gradual. (See Schmid, p. 
469). All depends on the definition of " Regeneration." 



APPENDIX, 281 

Note 50, Page 182. 

Luther to Staupitz, Trinity Sunday, 1518 * 
'I remember, Reverend Father, that among your most 
pleasant and profitable conversations, mention was once 
made of the term Poenitentia, when we heard you proclaim- 
ing, as though from Heaven, that there is no true repent- 
ance except that which begins with love of righteousness 
and God, and that what is generally regarded the end and 
consummation of repentance is, in reality, only the begin- 
ning. 

" This word of yours clave to me like a sharp arrow, 
and from that time on, I began to compare it with the 
passages of Scripture which treat of repentance. And, lo ! 
a most delightful entertainment ! the words, on all sides, 
joining with me in the sport, and verily smiling and leaping 
at this statement ; so that while previously there was 
scarcely a word in all Scripture more bitter to me than the 
word 'repentance,' now there is none that sounds sweeter 
or more grateful. 

" Afterwards, by the favor of the learned, who are so 
zealously transmitting to us the Greek and Hebrew, I learned 
that the same word in Greek is metanoia, so that repentance 
or metanoia is 'a change of mind.' This corresponded so 
aptly with the Pauline Theology, that, in my judgment, 
scarcely anj-thing can more aptly illustrate Paul. At length 
I made still further progress, and saw that metanoia can be 
derived not only from ' after ' and ' mind/ but from 'a cross' 
{trans. ) and \ mind '; so that metanoia indicates not only a 
change of mind and disposition, but also the mode of effect- 
ing the change, viz., the grace of God." 

Luther to Leo X. (Same date) : 

"I prove this, first, from the Greek word, metanoeite, 
which can be translated most literally by transmentamini ', 
f. ^., ' assume another mind and disposition,' 'make a 
change of mind and a passover of spirit/ so as to be wise 
now in heavenly, as you formerly were in earthly things, 



282 APPENDIX. 

as Paul sa} T s, Rom. 12:2: "Be ye transformed by the 
renewing of your mind.' " 

Note 51, Page 184. 

Chemnitz, Loci Theologici. "Our theologians, 
although they agree, frequently seem to speak differently, 
when one opposes Pelagianism, and another Enthusiasm ; 
and therefore contradictions are imagined and unnecessary 
controversies excited." 1:184. " Conversion or renovation 
is not such a change as is immediately in one moment accom- 
plished * * No one can show the mathematical point in 
which the freed will begins to act." lb. " In conversion, 
our parts are not first, "but God, through the Word and His 
Divine afflatus, precedes, moving and impelling the will. 
But after this divinely-wrought motion of the will, the 
human will is not purely passive, but moved and aided by 
the Holy Spirit, does not resist, but assists and becomes a 
co-worker with God." lb. p. 185. 

Note 52, Page 192. 
Institutes, (Presbyterian Board, Phila.) II, p. 488, 

Note 53, Page 193. 
Summa Summarum, IV : 18, 29. 

Note 54, Page 196. 
Institutes, II '.569 seq. 

Note 55, Page 197. 

See Formula of Concord, p. 668, concerning the opinion 
that the children of believers are regenerate before Baptism. 

Note 56, Page 199. 

We are indebted to Dr. H. B. Smith, System, p. 576, for 
the suggestion of this table. 



APPENDIX. 283 

Note 57, Page 205. 

Dr. Horatius Bonar in his God's Way of Holiness 
has done well in presenting to English readers a synopsis 
of the correspondence in 1531 between Luther and Melan- 
chthon on the one hand, and Brentz on the other. We 
have carefully compared his translation with the original 
given in the Corpus R eformatorum ^ II 1501-3, 510, and 
present it with a few slight verbal changes, inserting several 
sentences which, to save space, he has omitted. The import- 
ance of the subject, and the value of the opinion given, to 
all who have the care of souls, will justify the length of the 
quotation. 

" Brentius had been much perplexed on the subject of 
faith. It puzzled him. Christ justifies ; faith justifies ; how 
is this ? Is faith a merit? Is it a work ? Has it some just : - 
fving virtue in itself? Does it justify because it is the gift 
of God and the work of the Holy Spirit? Perplexed with 
these questions he wrote to Melanchthon and Luther. 

" 'I see/ writes Melanchthon, 'what is troubling you 
about faith. You still adhere to the fancy of Augustine, 
who, although right in rejecting the righteousness of human 
reason, imagines that we are justified by the fulfilling of the 
Law which the Holy Spirit works in us. So you imagine 
that men are justified by faith, because it is by faith that we 
receive the Spirit, that thereafter we may be able to be just 
by that fulfilment of the Law which the Spirit works. 
This imagination places Justification in our fulfilment of the 
Law, in our purity or perfection, although this renewal 
ought to follow faith. But turn your eyes from that renewal 
and from the Law altogether, to the promise and to Christ, 
and hold that it is on Christ *s account that we become just, 
that is accepted before God, and that it is thus we obtain 
peace of conscience, and not on account of that renewal. 
For even this renewing is insufficient. We are justified by 
faith alone j not because it is a root, as you write i but because 



284 APPENDIX. 

it apprehends Christ, on account of whom we are accepted ; 
this renewing, although it necessarily follows, does not 
pacify the conscience. Therefore not even love, though it 
is the fulfilling of the Law, justifies, but only faith; not 
because it is some excellence in us, but only because it takes 
hold of Christ ; we are justified, not on account of love, n^t 
on account of the fulfilling" of the Law, not on account of 
our renewal, although these are the gifts of the Holy Spirit, 
but on account of Christ ; and Him we take hold of by faith 
alone. * * Believe me, my Brentius, this controversy 
regarding the righteousness which is by faith, is a mighty 
one, and little understood ; and you can only rightly com- 
prehend it by turning your e}^es entirely away from the 
Law, and from Augustine's idea about our fulfilling the 
Law, and fix them wholly upon the free promise, so as to 
see that it is on account of the promise, and for Christ's 
sake, that we are justified, that is accepted and obtain 
peace. This is the true doctrine, and that which glorifies 
Christ and wonderfully lifts up the conscience. I endeavored 
to explain this in my Apology, but, on account of the mis- 
representations of adversaries, could not speak out so freely 
as I now do with you, although saying the very same thing. 
When could the conscience have peace and assured hope, if 
we be not justified until our renewal be perfected? What is 
this but to be justified by the Law, and not by the free 
promise? In that discussion, I said that to ascribe our Justi- 
fication to love, is to ascribe it to our own work ; understand- 
ing by that, a work wrought in us by the Holy Ghost. For 
faith justifies, not because it is a new work of the Spirit in 
us, but because it apprehends Christ, on account of whom 
we are accepted, and not on account of the gifts of the Holy 
Spirit in us. Turn away from Augustine's idea, and you will 
easily see the reason of this ; and I hope our Apology will 
somewhat help you, although I speak cautiously respecting 
matters so great, which are to be understood only in the con- 
flict of the conscience. B3- all means, preach Law and 



APPENDIX, 285 

repentance to the people, but let not this true doctrine of 
the Gospel be overlooked.' 

" In the same strain writes Luther : ' I am accustomed, 
my Brentius, for the better understanding of this point, to 
conceive this idea, that there is no quality in my heart at all, 
call it either faith or charity ; but instead of these I set 
Christ Himself, and I say : This is my righteousness. He is 
my quality and my formal righteousness, as they call it, so 
as to free me from looking into Law or works ; nay, from 
looking at Christ Himself as a teacher or a giver. But I look 
at Him as gift and as doctrine to me, in Himself, so that in 
Him I have all things. He says, ' I am the way, and the 
truth, and the life ;' He says not, ' I give thee the way and 
the truth and the life,' as if He were working on me frcm 
without. All these things He must be in me ; abiding, liv- 
ing and speaking in me, not through me or to me ; that we 
may be 'the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5 : 21) ; 
not in love, nor in the gifts and graces which follow. ' 

" To these letters Brentius replies : ' From childhood, I 
had not been able to clear my thoughts on these points. 
Your letter and that of Luther, and the Apology, which, in 
my judgment, is worthy of canonical authority, showed me 
that you doctors not only hold but teach correctly. There 
are three kinds of works, one satisfactory or meritorious, 
another instrumental, and a third declaratory. Christ's 
passion I call the satisfactory or meritorious work ; faith, I 
call the instrumental ; and the fruits of faith the declaratory 
works. Therefore, Justification or the remission of sins 
comes to us neither on account of 'our love, nor our faith, but 
solely on account of Christ ; and yet it comes through faith. 
For I have inferred this from your statement that faith justi- 
fies, not as a work worthy of itself, but simply because it 
receives the promised mercy. Am I not right? It is one 
thing to merit ; it is another to obtain Justification. Faith 
does not merit Justification by its own work cr worth ; and 
yet through faith as an instrument, Justification comes to 



286 APPENDIX. 

us, and does not come through the fruits of faith or love. 
* * Christ alone is the satisfaction and merit. Faith alone 
is the organ or iustrument by which Christ is received. But 
works proceeding from faith are neither satisfaction, nor 
merit, nor instrument, but they only declare the righteous- 
ness received by faith. So far as I remember, Paul nowhere 
says that Justification comes to us on account of our faith, 
much less does he ascribe satisfaction and merit to the work 
of our heart ; but he says that it comes to us by faith or 
through faith.' " 

Note 58, Page 209. 

The Roman Catholic theologian, J. A. MohlER, in his 
Symbolik tries to find in this an inconsistency with the doc- 
trine of Justification by faith alone taught by Luther else- 
where : " Luther, in many places, describes this in nearly 
the same terms as the Catholics depict the divine love of the 
regenerated. In this class of the Reformer's writings, are 
included those on Christian freedom and on good works; and 
who knows not the brilliant description of faith in his Pre- 
face to St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans. Here in the 
most amiable contradiction with the Lutheran theory of 
Justification, a renovation and entire transformation of the 
whole inner man are taught. Faith appears as the blossom 
springing out of the union of all the powers constituting 
the interior man, as an expression of their combined work- 
ing," (English Translation, by Robertson, p. 127 seq.) 
Mohler here simply reverses Luther's conception as clearly 
expressed in the passage, which is not that faith is "the 
blossom," but that it is root and impelling energy of all the 
powers of the new life. 

Note 59, Page 210. 
Lutheri Opera (Erlangen Edition) 3 1107. 

Note 60, Page 212. 
u Even where a momentary subjection to the remains 



APPENDIX. 2 8 7 

of sin is found, there is connected therewith an inner resist- 
ance to sin, so that sin in the regenerate man remains dis- 
tinct from sin in the unregenerate, even if this fact should 
be hidded from consciousness. This resistance makes itself 
felt again in regret and penitent self-renewal." Dorxer, 
IV : 186. This is a sufficient answer to the irony of Mohxer, 
(p. 109) : " Luther speaks of wicked lust, avarice, anger, 
immodesty, adding a significant et cetera, which are all to be 
found in the just man. Calvin, too, makes us acquainted 
with saints of this sort. A singular saint, forsooth, who 
seeks his own interest, and not Christ's glory ! n 

A thought of DoRNER (IV :p. 240 seq ) concerning 
Sanctification deserves consideration and elaboration : " The 
Holy Spirit does not extinguish individuality , but educes 
charisms therefrom. The persons remain distinct ; the 
nearer they approach perfection , the more purely is their 
distinctive, independent core elaborated, the mere is their 
character disciplined by the Holy Spirit, who thus ratifies 
distinctions." 

Note 61, Page 215. 

Luther : " Oh that I had a voice like a peal of thunder, 
that I could be heard throughout the whole world, and tear 
the term * good works' out of the hearts, mouth, ears and 
books of all men, or, rather, could give them its true mean- 
ing ! All the world is singing, talking, waiting and thinking 
of good works ; all sermons resound with good works ; all 
cloisters and monasteries announce good works. And yet 
there is a good work now T here ; no one understands what it 
is. They call what God has not commanded, viz., pilgrim- 
ages, fasts, building and adorning churches in honor of the 
saints, masses, vigils, praying the rosary, etc., good works. 

* * Hear what Christ calls 'a good work,' Matt. 7: 12 : 

* Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye 
even so to them ; for this is the law and the prophets.' * * 
To live, to speak, to labor, to hear, to suffer and to die in 



288 



APPENDIX. 



the love and service of another, the husband for his wife 
and children, the wife for the husband, the children for the 
parents, servants for their masters, and masters for their 
servants, magistrates for their subjects, and subjects for 
their magistrates, every one for the other, even though he 
be an enemy, so that the one would always be to the other 
hand, mouth, eye, foot ; aye, heart and soul — these are 
truly Christian good works " {Sermon on I Advent, Works, 
Erlangen Edition, 10 : 23-25). Cf. Apology, pp. 285 seq. 

Note 62, Page 215. 

Cf. Formula of Concord : " If the believing and elect 
children of Gcd would be completely renewed by the in- 
dwelling Spirit in this life, so that in their nature and all its 
powers they would be entirely free from sin, they would 
need no law, and so also no impeller, but what they are in 
duty bound to do according to God's will they would do of 
themselves, and altogether voluntarily, without any instruc- 
tion, admonition, solicitation or urging of the Law ; just as 
the sun, the moon and all the constellations cf heaven have 
of themselves, unobstructed, their regular course, without 
admonition, solicitation, urging, force or necessity, accord- 
ing to the arrangement of God, which God once gave them ; 
yea, just as the holy angels render an entirely voluntary 
obedience." 

Note 63, Page 218. 

On the reward of Good Works, see Apology, p. 153 seq. 



Note 64, Page 232. 

Care had to be taken to avoid several grave errors in the 
explanation of the doctrine of the Church. There was the 
Scholastic doctrine which prevailed in the Roman Church, 
and which laid the greatest stress upon the visible side of the 
conception of the Church, "an assembly of men, as visible 
and palpable, as the assembly of the Roman people, or the 



APPEXDIX. 289 

Kingdom of France, or the State of Venice ;" "a city upon a 
hill which can be seen from all sides," (Beelarmixe). 
There was the Donatistic errcr, said to have been shared by 
Wiclifj which emphasized the spiritual side of the Church, 
to such an extent, as to deny the efficacy of the Word and 
Sacraments, when administered by unbelieving ministers. 
In revulsion from the Roman extreme, there was a strong 
tendency to regard the Church as necessarily invisible. 
Zwingli first broached the distinction between the visible 
and the invisible Church, which, when adopted by Melanch- 
thon, passed into Lutheran theology, but is not found in the 
Lutheran Confession. Even Luther in 1535 speaks of the 
Church as "invisible," and nowhere appearing according to 
sense, although his meaning must be interpreted by what he 
says in other connections. In one sense, the Church is 
never invisible; for the Word and Sacraments are marks 
that always show the presence of the Church. In another 
sense, the Church is invisible, since no eye but that of Gcd 
can discern the line that separates its true members from 
those who are only externally attached to it by the profes- 
sion, but not by the actual possession of faith. The visible, 
organized, external association of men professing the faith 
is called the Church only by synechdoche, i. <?., in the wide, 
but not in the proper sense of the term. The Church, 
prcperly speaking, is "' the congregation of saints " {Augs- 
burg Confession, VII, VIII), " a fellowship of faith and the 
Holy Ghcst in hearts, " "notan outward govern ment of cer- 
tain nations, but men scattered throughout the whole world, 
who agree concerning the Gospel, and have the same Christ, 
the same Holy Ghost and the same Sacraments" {Apology > 
pp. 161-3). 

In 1 Cor. 1 : 2, the Church at Corinth is the Saints at 
Corinth. In 1 Cor. 12, the nature of the Church, as the 
Body of Christ, is examined at length, the entire argument 
clearly proving that the unbelieving are not true members 
of the Church. The same is taught by the parable of the 



290 



APPENDIX. 



vine and the branches in John 15, and the spiritual temple 
of 1 Peter 2 : 5. Upon the basis of such texts, Ignatius to 
the Trallians incidentally gives a definition of 'e/c/cA^cr/a 
y eKleKT7i by adding to it the appositives ovvad-potojua ayiov y 
cvvayoy?] ociuv (Ignatius, Migne Edition, p. 7S0), " the elect 
Church, the congregation of holy men, the assembly cf 
saints." CLEMENT of Alexandria says : " I call the Church 
not a place, but the congregation of the elect," {Stromata, 
VII, inSuiCER'S Thesaurus, I : 1050). Isidore of Pelusium: 
" The Church is the congregation of saints collected from a 
right faith and the best mode of life ;" also in SuiCERib., 
where other definitions are found : Jobuis Monachus : 
"The Church is a people believing in Christ;" Zonaras : 
" The Church is properly the congregation of believers." 
Cyrii, of Alexandria : ' ' When we speak of or mention the 
Churches, we mean thereby the saints worshipping in 
them." Nicetas (in Zezschwitz's Katechetik, II : 124) : 
"What else is the Church, but the congregation of all 
saints?" Chrysostom on Eph. IV: "The Church is 
nothing but the House of God, built of our souls." 

The clause "communion of saints," was one of the 
final links in the gradual development of the Apostles' 
Creed. It cannot be traced earlier than A. D. 550. In the 
Greek, the word translated "saints," was first understood, 
as of the neuter gender (rtiv dyttiv, genitive of ra ay id). Its 
original application was probably to the Lord's Supper, 
which is sometimes designated ra ayia y (see SuiCER, I : 62). 
In this sense, its use was not unusual in the Douatistic 
controversy. Thence, with the decline of purity of doc- 
trine, it gradually attained the meaning of a communion 
with departed saints, and participation in the fund of super- 
fluous merits which they had acquired by their works of 
supererogation. This was closely connected with the so- 
called Sacrifice cf the Mass, in which the Offertory contains 
prayers for such communication of the merits of the saints. 
Durandus, the great liturgist of the Thirteenth Century, in 



APPENDIX. 291 

his Rationale Divinorum Officionim,, paraphrases this 
article as : " By the faith which I have in the holy and uni- 
versal Church, I strive for the communion of saints, that is, 
their harmony and union ; or * I receive the communion of 
saints, that is, the cup of blessing,' " just as the succeeding 
article is interpreted as " By the faith which I have in the 
holy and universal Church, I obtain forgiveness of sins." 

In the controversy concerning Indulgences, this inter- 
pretation of the article was pressed to its fullest extent, as 
Chemnitz shows in his Examen (Preuss edition, pp. 3 10 
seq. ), — an interpretation which the Jesuit theologian PER- 
roxe (Praelertio7ies, II : 410) has in later 3-ears used in the 
same interest On the other hand, Erasmus had suggested 
another interpretation : 

" It is very likely that this particle hath been added of 
some man, who went about to declare what thing was to be 
understood by the Holy Church. The Church is a society, 
fellowship or compain', not of all manner of men, but of 
holy men or saints. * * Among divines of later time, some 
interpret the Holy Church as the society of men militant 
and warring in Earth, under Christ their Captain, and the 
communion of saints as the society of saints triumphing in 
Heaven. Others expound by * communion of saints' the 
suffrages of the Church, profitable and available to all men 
who are in the body of the Church. Others expound it as 
signifying the Sacraments which profit only those who join 
themselves to the Church. Others think that by the name 
'communion' the Sacrament of the Altar is betokened; 
for by this mystery, the closest union of the mystical Body 
with the Head and the mystical fellowship of all who pro- 
fess the name of Christ, are figured. The divines who 
imagine these things, speak indeed what is true, but, in my 
judgment, they do not express what is properly declared by 
the words." 

This interpretation of Erasmus can be traced centuries 
earlier. That of an Exposition of the Creed, prepared by 



292 APPENDIX, 

order of Charlemagne, Magni Senosensis Archiepiscopi 
LibelluSy found in Martene, De Antiquis Ecclesiae Riti- 
bus, 1 : 61, is as follows : " They confess also one Catholic 
Church and communion of all saints, t. e. , congregation of 
all believers in Christ." Necnon et unam confitentur Catho- 
licam ecclesiam et communionem omnium sanctorum, id est 
congregationem omnium fidelium in Christo. About a cen- 
tury later, an old Saxon Catechism of the reign of Alfred 
of England ( 871-905 ) , published by Marquand Treher ( 1565 ), 
we find : 

Ich glaube an den heilgen Geist, unddie heilige Kirche, 
und heilige Gemeinde, und der Sunden Vergeben. And ic 
gelyfe on than halgan Gast, and tha halgaji gelathinge, and 
halgang mannysse, and synna forgifenysse. 

"I believe in the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Church, and 
Holy Congregation, and the forgiveness of sins. " The omis- 
sion of the article before " Holy Congregation " connects it 
the more closely to the preceding clause. 

Luther, whose Exposition of the Lord's Prayer in the 
Small Catechism, is only an expansion of the paraphrase, 
found in the Ancient Gallican Missal (MuraTori, Liturgia 
Romano. Vetus, 11:716 seq.), in following Erasmus, was 
most probably fully aware of the expositions of the purer 
period before the deteriorations of Scholasticism, such as he 
probably read in the Exposition of Charlemagne. 

Other cotemporaries that strove to support the declining 
Roman Catholic power, and to withstand the force of 
Luther's attack, by efforts of a less aggressive reform, also 
fell back upon this early definition revived by Erasmus. 

In the Enchiridion of the Chapter of Cologne (1538), 
" the communion of saints " is thus explained : 

"This article is rather an explanation of the former 
than a new article. For it declares what is to be understood 
by the holy Church, and what fruit comes to one who is a 
living member of the Catholic' Church. For the holy 
Church is the assembly and congregation of faithful people, 



APPENDIX. 



293 



professing one God, one Gospel, one faith, one hope, in the 
bonds of love, and sharing the same Spirit and the same 
Sacraments. For we believe that there is such an a^semblv 
of saints, bound together by the Spirit of Christ, not only 
in Heaven, but on earth." 

To Luther, the Mediaeval conception of the Com- 
munion of Saints, was an indescribable abomination. He 
would none of it. He met the issue directly in the Indul- 
gence Controversy. In a Sermon of 15 19 (Brlangen Bdition 
of LuTHKR'S Works, XXVII : 29 seq., 35 seq. ) he states and 
refutes the arguments from this source. In the Large 
Catechism, pp. 444 seq., he uses almost the very words of 
Erasmus in showing that "communion of saints" is in 
apposition to ' ' Church. ' ' * ' It is nothing else than an inter- 
pretation or explanation, whereby some one meant to ex- 
plain what the Christian Church is." His argument is so 
accessible that it need not be quoted at length. 

Chemnitz follows him (Examen, p. 811): "These 
w r ords were added, not to form a separate article, but to be a 
declaration of the preceding article concerning the Church, 
viz., that it is an assembly and congregation or society of 
those who are sanctified by the Spirit of Christ and are 
members of one Mystical Body under Christ, the Head. 
For, first, cpmmunio is taken as society in Gal. 2, Luke 5, 
2 Cor. 8. Secondly, because the Church, as Irenaeus says, 
is a rich repository in which God has deposited all spiritual 
blessings acquired by the blood of Christ, which are nec- 
essary to attain the forgiveness of sins and the life ever- 
lasting, in order to dispense them by the Word and Sacra- 
ments to believers. Since, however, there is one God, 
one faith, one baptism, one Christ, one righteousness and 
life everlasting, which are offered and applied equally to 
all believers in the Church, all believers in common have 
communion or participation in those blessings which are 
contained in the. following articles concerning the forgive- 
ness of sins and the life everlasting. Hence, it furnishes us 



294 APPENDIX. 

the most joyful consolation, that the Church is called the 
Communion of Saints. For although there be in the saints, 
diverse gifts, yet so far as pertains to the forgiveness of sins 
and life everlasting, there is a communion of all saints, 
who, all in common, alike and equally, by the grace of God 
and for the merit of Christ receive by faith the forgiveness 
of sins and life everlasting.' ' 

Id. — {Loci Theologici III : 115) : ' ' There are some who 
try to make distinct articles of that concerning the Catholic 
Church and the Communion of Saints. But in fact they are 
only making difficulties where there are none, and endeav- 
oring to involve the Church of Christ in needless con- 
troversies. Let us have simplicity and join these two mem- 
bers of one and the same article. Thus the explanation 
will be plainer and full of consolation, when we con- 
sider and believe that to us also belongs the lot of the 
saints that are in Heaven.' ' 

Gerhard (Loci Theologici}'. "Some endeavor to 
distinguish this article from that which immediately pre- 
cedes, so that by the communio sanctorum, in the neuter 
gender, a participation in the same sacraments is meant; 
for it seems to them inconsistent that, in the Creed, there 
should be no mention of the sacraments. While this 
explanation does not conflict with the analogy of faith, 
it seems more fitting to understand the clause epexigetically, 
viz., that the Catholic Church, which we believe, is the 
Communion of Saints." 

A number of the Reformed Confessions give the same 
explanation : 

TetrapouTan (1530): "Since in these, the Saviour 
truly reigns, they are called his Church, and the commun- 
ion, i. e., society of saints, as the term, * Church,' is 
explained in the Apostles' Creed." 

I BasIvE (1534): "We believe that there is a Holy 
Christian Church, i.e., a communion of saints, a congrega- 
tion of those faithful in the Spirit." 



APPENDIX. 295 

I Helvetic (1536) : " One Holy, Catholic Church, the 
communion and congregation of all saints." 

So in the Catechism of Thomas Becox written in the 
reign of Edward VI. : "What doest thou mean by calling 
the holy universal Church * the company or fellowship of 
saints'? These words do nothing else in a manner than 
declare what the holy universal Church is, verily a company 
of saints, or of holy and godly-disposed persons," and 
Cranaier'S Catechism , which, however, is a translation 
from the Brandenburg -Numb erg explanation: "This 
Christian Church is a communion of saints, that is to say, 
all that are of this communion or company are holy." The 
Reformed theologian Heidegger, author of the Zurich 
Formula of 1575, says : "The Church is the communion of 
saints, because it ia the union, society and congregation 
of all the faithful, who hold together something in com- 
mon," and Heppe : "The Church is called the communion 
of saints, since, on the one hand, Christ is its only posses- 
sion and the one ground of its joy in God, and, on the other 
hand, both living and departed believers are united in 
communion of their hope in the Lord, in communion of 
intercession for all members of the Church, and in com- 
munion of the same gifts of the Holy Ghost." 

Even Modern Roman Catholic theologians have felt the 
force of the argument which supports this interpretation, 
and have endeavored to revise their current explanation 
accordingly. Thus Mattes in Wetzer and Welte's Kirchen 
Lexico7i : ''The foundation of the Catholic doctrine con- 
cerning the saints is the Ninth Article of the Apostles' 
Creed. This declares that there is a communion of saints, 
i. e., all those who believe in Christ form one communion, 
one body, i. e., an organically arranged whole. From the 
beginning, believing Christians were called saints." 

Bouvier Institutio7ies Theologicae (V : 88) : 

Sanctam ecclesiam catholicam^ sanctorum commun- 
ionem ; non dicimus, ' Credo in Ecclesiam,' sed 'Credo 



296 



APPENDIX. 



Ecclesiam', scilicet earn esse. * * Per sanctorum com- 
munionem, intelligitur quamdam esse societatem et bon- 
orum spiritualium participationem inter eos qui sunt in 
Kcclesia. 

The transition among Protestants whereby "the com- 
munion of saints" is regarded by some a separate article, can 
be traced. Calvin still combined the two clauses into one 
article, saying in his Institutes (2 : 246) : "The order of the 
Creed teaches us that pardon of sins ever continues in the 
Church of Christ, because, after having mentioned the 
Church, it immediately adds the forgiveness of sins." But 
while Luther had laid emphasis upon the fact that the 
Church was composed of " saints," i. e. , believers, Calvin 
emphasized the fact that it was a ' ' communion ' ' : "We 
add 'the communion of saints' — a clause which, though 
generally omitted by the ancients, ought not to be neglected, 
because it excellently expresses the character of the Church ; 
as though it had been said that the saints are united in the 
fellowship of Christ on this condition, that whatever benefits 
God confers upon them, they should mutually communi- 
cate to each other." (lb. p. 223). But in the Geneva 
Catechism (1545), on The Creed, while the interpretation 
of the second clause remains the same, it becomes a separ- 
ate article. In this, it was followed by the Heidelberg 
Catechism (1563). The Westminster Confession (1647), 
however, goes so far as to make " the communion of saints " 
a confessional article (Chapter XXVI), which is elaborately 
treated in three sections, as the communion which saints 
have with Christ and with one another. Among Presbyter- 
ians in this country, this interpretation acquired especial 
significance, because of the argument of Dr. J. M. Mason to 
establish from it the duty of open communion in the Lord's 
Supper among the various Christian denominations. See 
Mason's Works (New York, 1849, vol. I, p. 202, seq.) 
The most learned advocate of this view, is Sir PETER King 
in his History of the Apostles' Creed, with Critical. Observa- 



APPENDIX. 297 

tions (London 1738), who nevertheless declares that "com- 
munion of saints " is only "an appendix " to what precedes 
(p. 322), and that " it is very probable that * the communion 
of saints ' was added as an explanatory clause of the Holy 
Catholic Church " (p. 333). 

The objection that the word " communion " is not used 
in ecclesiastical Latin of an " association " or " society," is 
answered by a reference to Ducange, Glossarium Mediae 
et Infimae Latinitatis, vol. II : 486. The very first meaning 
of communio, there given, is commanitas hominum unius 
urbis et oppidi. A reference to commune, p. 482, gives 
communio and its synonyms : Incolarum urbis aut oppidi 
universitas, domino, velrege concedente, sacramento invicem, 
cet Usque legibus astricta. 

In a word, the prevailing interpretation among the 
earlier Reformers, Lutheran and Reformed, was that the 
Church, properly speaking, was composed only of saints or 
believers, and that these saints or believers constituted a 
14 communion " in which there was a common participation 
by all in that which belonged to each member. ' 'All the 
members of that one body, being many, are one body," 
1 Cor. 12 : 12. 

Note 65, Page 244. 

Even so extreme an advocate of the hierarchical system 
as Thomas Aouixas concedes that there was no distinction 
secundum nomen, Suntma Summarum II, 2, Q, 184. The 
argument showing the gradual rise of the diocesan episco- 
pate has been most admirably presented, upon the basis of 
Rothe by the late Bishop Lightfoot, in an Excursus 
to his able Commentary on the Epistle to the Philippians, 
which has also been published, in an inexpensive form, 
separately: i( The Christian Ministry , by J. B. Lightfoot, 
D. D, ; New York : Thomas Whittaker," p. 147. 

A most valuable recent contribution to the history of 
the early Church, based upon new and extensive research, 



298 APPENDIX. 

is The Church in the Roman Empire Before A. D. i?o y by 
W. M. Ramsay, M. A., Professor in the University of 
Aberdeen, New York : 1893. The rise of Diocesan Episco- 
pacy is traced as follows : 

" The central idea in the development of the episcopal 
office lay in the duty of each community to maintain com- 
munication with other communities. The officials who 
performed this duty became the guardians of unit}'. * * 
The destruction of Jerusalem annihilated all possibility of 
a localized centre for Christianity, and made it clear that 
the centralization of the Church could reside only in an 
idea, viz., a process of intercommunication, union and 
brotherhood. * * This close connection could not be 
maintained by mere unregulated voluntary efforts ; orga- 
nized action alone was able to keep it up. The early system 
of government by the presiding Council of Elders was slowly 
developed to cope with the pressing need ; and the Episcopal 
organization was thus gradually elaborated. * * The 
scanty and unsatisfactory evidence of the first century 
points to the practical permanence of the episcopos as al- 
ready usual, but is inconsistent with the idea that the 
episcopos was considered as separate in principle from the 
co-presbyters. He was only a presbyter on whom certain 
duties had been imposed. * * His position was ostensibly 
an humble one within the community ; and yet its real in- 
fluence and its future possibilities must have been obvious 
to him that had eyes to see beneath the superficial aspect. 1 ' 
(pp. 364-9. ) 



6T 

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